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;  WM.  H.  BARTLi 


A 


BOOK  o'  NINE  TALES 


ARLO    BATES 


BOSTON 

ROBERTS      BROTHERS 
1891 


CONTENTS. 


Tale  the  First :        A  STRANGE  IDYL   ....  7 

Interlude  First:       AN  EPISODE  IN  MASK    .     .  55 

Tale  the  Second :     THE  TUBEROSE 67 

Interlude  Second:   AN  EVENING  AT  WHIST.     .  89 

Tale  the  Third :       SAUCY  BETTY  MORK  .     .     .  101 

Interlude  Third:      MRS.  FRUFFLES  is  AT  HOME  131 

Tale  the  Fourth :     JOHN  VANTINE 141 

Interlude  Fourth :  THE  RADIATOR 155 

Tale  the  Fifth :        MERE  MARCHETTE     .     .     .  163 
Interlude  Fifth :       "SUCH  SWEET  SORROW"    .  189 
Tale  the  Sixth  :       BARUM    WEST'S    EXTRAVA 
GANZA     201 

Interlude  Sixth :       A  BUSINESS  MEETING     .     .  221 

Tale  the  Seventh :   A  SKETCH  IN  UMBER     .     .  233 

Interlude  Seventh  :  THIRTEEN 253 

Tale  the  Eighth :     APRIL'S  LADY 263 

Interlude  Eighth :    A  CUBAN  MORNING    .     .     .  283 

Tale  the  Ninth :       DELIA  GRIMWET     ....  301 


A   STRANGE   IDYL. 


A   BOOK   O'   NINE   TALES. 


A   STRANGE   IDYL. 

I. 

E  lay  upon  an  old-fashioned  bed 
stead  whose  carved  quaintness 
would  once  have  pleased  him,  but 
to  which  he  was  now  indifferent. 
He  rested  upon  his  back,  staring  at  the  ceil 
ing,  on  whose  white  surface  were  twinkling 
golden  dots  and  lines  in  a  network  which  even 
his  broken  mind  knew  must  be  the  sunlight 
reflected  from  off  the  water  somewhere.  The 
windows  of  the  chamber  were  open,  and  the 
sweet  summer  air  came  in  laden  with  the  per 
fume  of  flowers  piquantly  mingled  with  pun 
gent  sea  odors.  Now  and  then  a  bee  buzzed 
by  the  casement,  or  a  butterfly  seemed  tempted 
to  enter  the  sick-room  —  apparently  thought 
better  of  it,  and  went  on  its  careless  way. 

Of  all  these  things  the  sick  man  who  lay 
there  was  unconscious,  and  the  sweet  young 


10  A  BOOK   Cf   NINE   TALES. 

girl  sitting  by  his  bed  was  too  deeply  buried 
in  her  book  to  notice  them.  For  some  time 
there  was  no  movement  in  the  chamber,  until, 
the  close  of  a  chapter  releasing  for  an  instant 
the  reader's  attention,  she  looked  to  discover 
that  the  patient's  eyes  were  open.  Seeing 
him  awake,  she  rose  and  came  a  step  nearer, 
thereby  making  the  second  discovery,  more 
startling  than  the  first,  that  the  light  of  rea 
son  had  replaced  in  those  eyes  the  stare  of 
delirium. 

"Ah,"  she  said,  softly,  "you  are  awake  !" 

The  invalid  turned  his  gaze  toward  her,  far 
too  feeble  to  make  any  other  movement ;  but 
he  made  no  attempt  to  speak. 

"No,"  she  continued,  with  that  little  purr 
ing  intonation  which  betrays  the  feminine 
satisfaction  at  having  a  man  helpless  and  un 
able  to  resist  coddling;  "don't  speak.  Take 
your  medicine,  and  go  to  sleep  again." 

She  put  a  firm,  round  arm  beneath  his 
head,  and  bestowed  upon  him  a  spoonful  of 
a  colorless  liquid,  afterward  smoothing  his  pil 
lows  with  deft,  swift  touches.  He  submitted 
with  utter  passiveness  of  mind  and  body,  ig 
norant  who  this  maiden  might  be,  where  he 
was,  or,  indeed,  who  he  was.  Painfully  he 
endeavored  to  think,  to  remember,  to  under 
stand  ;  but  with  no  result  save  confusing 


A  STRANGE  IDYL  II 

himself  and  bringing  on  an  ache  in  his  head. 
His  nurse,  at  the  convenient  end  of  another 
chapter,  observed  a  look  of  pain  and  trouble 
upon  the  thin  face,  scarcely  less  white  than 
the  pillow  against  which  it  rested. 

"  You  are  worrying,"  she  observed  with 
authority.  "  Go  to  sleep.  You  are  not  to 
think  yet." 

And,  staying  himself  upon  the  resolution 
and  confidence  in  her  tone,  he  abandoned 
himself  again  to  the  current  of  circumstances, 
and  drifted  away  into  dreams. 

The  girl,  watching  closely  now,  with  mind 
distracted  from  her  story  to  the  more  tangi 
ble  mystery  involved  in  the  presence  of  the 
sick  man,  gave  a  little  sigh  of  relief  when 
his  even  breathing  indicated  that  he  had 
fallen  asleep.  She  removed  softly  to  a  seat 
near  the  window,  and  looked  out  upon  the 
tranquil  beauty  of  the  afternoon.  Long 
Island  Sound  lay  before  her,  dimpling  and 
twinkling  in  the  sunshine,  while  nearer  a 
sloping  lawn  stretched  from  the  house  to  the 
shore.  Glancing  backward  and  forward  be 
tween  the  sunny  landscape  and  the  bed  where 
her  patient  slept,  the  maiden  fell  to  wonder 
ing  about  him,  recalling  the  little  she  knew, 
and  straining  her  fancy  to  construct  the  story 
of  his  life. 


12  A  BOOK  Cf  NINE   TALES. 

Three  weeks  before  a  Sound  steamer  had 
been  wrecked  so  near  this  spot  that  through 
the  stormy  night  she  had  seen  the  glare  of 
the  fire  which  broke  out  before  the  hull  sank, 
and  the  next  morning's  tide  had  brought  to 
shore  this  man,  a  floating  waif,  saved  by  a 
life-preserver  and  some  propitious  current. 
A  terrible  wound  upon  his  head  showed 
where  he  had  experienced  some  blow,  and 
left  him  hesitating  with  distraught  brain  be 
tween  life  and  death.  In  his  delirium  he  had 
muttered  of  varied  scenes.  He  must,  the 
watcher  reflected,  have  travelled  extensively. 
Now  there  were  words  which  showed  that  he 
was  sharing  in  wild  escapades;  cries  of  defi 
ance  or  of  encouragement  to  comrades  whose 
shadowy  forms  his  disordered  brain  sum 
moned  from  the  mysterious  past  ;  strange 
names,  and  words  in  unknown  tongues  min 
gled  themselves  with  incoherent  appeals  or 
bitter  reproaches. 

To  the  girl  who  had  been  scarcely  less  at 
his  bedside  than  the  old  woman  who  nom 
inally  nursed  him,  these  broken  fragments 
of  wild  talk  had  been  like  bits  of  jewels 
from  which  her  mind  had  fashioned  a  fan 
tastic  mosaic.  The  mystery  surrounding 
the  stranger  would,  in  any  case,  have  ap 
pealed  strongly  to  her  quick  fancy,  but  when 


A  STRANGE   IDYL.  13 

to  this  was  added  the  brilliancy  of  his  deliri 
ous  ravings,  it  is  small  wonder  that  her  imag 
ination  took  fire,  and  she  wove  endless  ro 
mances,  in  all  of  which  the  unconscious  sick 
man  figured  as  the  hero.  Scraps  of  talk  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  a  few  sonorous  foreign 
words,  a  little  ignorance  concerning  matters 
in  reality  commonplace  enough,  have,  in 
many  a  case  before,  been  the  sufficient  foun 
dations  for  a  gorgeous  fata  morgana  of  fancy. 
The  stranger  had  been  thrown  ashore  only 
partially  dressed,  and  with  nothing  upon  him 
which  bore  a  name.  A  belt  around  his  waist 
contained  about  fifteen  hundred  dollars  in 
bills  and  a  small  quantity  of  gold-dust.  From 
the  presence  of  this  latter  they  had  specu 
lated  that  the  wounded  man  might  be  a  re 
turning  Californian,  yet  his  clothing  was  of 
too  fine  texture  and  manufacture  for  this  sup 
position.  Several  persons,  seeking  for  friends 
lost  in  the  disaster  from  which  he  came,  had 
vainly  endeavored  to  identify  him,  and  his 
description  had  been  given  in  the  New  York 
papers ;  but  without  result.  There  seemed, 
upon  the  whole,  to  be  no  especial  hope  of 
obtaining  any  satisfactory  information  regard 
ing  the  sick  man  until  he  was  able  to  furnish 
it  himself ;  and  to-day  for  the  first  time  the 
watcher  found  in  his  eyes  the  light  of  return- 


14  A   BOOK  O   NINE    TALES. 

ing  reason.  She  felt  as  if  upon  the  threshold 
of  a  great  discovery.  She  smiled  softly  to 
herself  to  think  how  eager  she  had  become 
over  this  mystery;  to  recognize  how  large  a 
place  the  stranger  occupied  in  her  thoughts  ; 
yet  she  could  but  acknowledge  to  herself  that 
this  was  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the 
existence  which  surrounded  her. 

The  life  into  which  the  wounded  man  had 
been  driven  by  the  currents  of  the  sea  and 
those  stronger  currents  of  the  universe  which 
we  call  Fate  was  a  sufficiently  monotonous 
one.  The  household  into  which  he  had 
been  received  consisted  of  an  old  gentleman, 
broken  alike  in  health  and  fortune,  so  that 
while  the  establishment  over  which  presided 
his  only  child  was  not  one  of  absolute  want, 
it  was  often  straitened  by  the  necessity  of 
uncomfortable  economies.  Alone  with  an 
old  family  servant,  the  father  and  daughter 
lived  on  in  the  homestead  which  the  wealth 
of  their  ancestors  had  improved,  but  which 
their  present  revenues  were  inadequate  to 
preserve  in  proper  state.  One  day  with  them 
was  so  like  every  other  day  that  the  differ 
ences  of  the  calendar  seemed  purely  empir 
ical,  even  when  assisted  by  such  diversity  as 
old  Sarah,  the  faithful  retainer,  was  able  to 
compass  in  the  matter  of  the  viands  which, 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  15 

at  stated  periods  in  the  week,  appeared  upon 
their  frugal  table. 

Old  Mr.  Dysart  would  have  failed  to  per 
ceive  the  justice  ot  the  epithet  "  selfish  "  as 
applied  to  himself  ;  yet  no  word  so  perfectly 
described  him.  He  was  absorbed  in  the  com 
pilation  of  a  complete  genealogy  of  the  entire 
Dysart  family,  with  all  its  ramifications  and 
allied  branches.  What  became  of  his  daugh 
ter  while  he  delved  among  musty  parchments 
in  his  stately  old  library;  how  the  burdens  of 
the  household  were  borne  ;  and  how  a  nar 
row  income  was  made  to  cover  expenses, 
were  plainly  matters  upon  which  he  could 
not  be  expected  to  waste  his  valuable  time. 
The  maiden  could  scarcely  have  been  more 
alone  upon  a  desert  island,  or  in  a  magic 
tower.  Her  days  followed  each  other  with 
slow,  monotonous  flow,  like  the  sands  in  an 
hour-glass, — each  like  the  one  before,  and 
each,  too,  like  the  one  to  follow. 

Amid  such  a  colorless  waste  of  existence 
the  rich  mystery  of  the  wounded  stranger 
appeared  doubly  brilliant  by  contrast  ;  and 
it  is  small  wonder  that  to  the  watcher  the 
first  gleam  of  returning  intelligence  in  the 
sick  man's  eyes  was  as  the  promise  of 
the  opening  of  a  door  behind  which  lay  an 
enchanted  palace. 


1 6  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 


II. 

IT  was  yet  a  day  or  two  before  the  sick 
man  spoke.  He  was  very  weak,  and  lay  for 
the  most  part  in  a  deathlike  but  health-giving 
sleep.  At  length  the  day  came  when  he  said 
feebly :  — 

(i  Where  am  I  ?  " 

"  Here,"  his  nurse  answered,  with  truly 
feminine  irrelevancy. 

"  Where  ?  " 

"  At  Glencarleon." 

He  lay  silent  for  some  moments,  evidently 
struggling  to  attach  some  meaning  to  the 
name,  and  to  collect  his  strength  for  further 
inquiries. 

His  eyes  expressed  his  mental  confusion. 

"  You  were  hurt  in  the  steamer  accident," 
she  explained.  "  You  came  ashore  here, 
and  are  with  friends.  Don't  try  to  talk.  It 
is  all  right." 

He  was  too  feeble  to  remonstrate,  —  too 
feeble  even  to  reason,  and  he  obeyed  her 
injunction  of  silence  without  protest.  She 
retreated  to  her  favorite  scat  by  the  window, 
and  took  up  her  sewing  ;  but  her  revery 
progressed  more  rapidly  than  her  stitches, 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  1 7 

and  when  she  was  relieved  from  her  post  by 
old  Sarah,  she  stole  softly  out  of  the  room 
to  continue  her  dreaming  in  an  arbor  over 
looking  the  water,  where,  in  pleasant  weather, 
she  was  wont  to  spend  her  leisure  hours. 

The  next  day,  when  she  gave  her  patient 
his  morning  gruel,  he  watched  her' with  ques 
tioning  eyes,  as  if  endeavoring  to  identify 
her,  and  at  last  framed  another  inquiry. 

"  Who  are  you?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  am  Columbine." 

"  Columbine?  " 

"  Columbine  Dysart." 

That  he  knew  little  more  than  before  was 
a  consequence  of  the  situation,  and  Mistress 
Columbine  was  wise  enough  to  spare  him  the 
necessity  of  saying  so. 

"  You  do  not  know  us,"  she  said  ;  "  but  we 
will  take  good  care  of  you  until  you  are  well 
enough  to  hear  all  about  it." 

"  But—  "  he  began,  the  puzzled  look  upon 
his  wan  face  not  at  all  dissipated. 

"No,"  she  returned,  "there  is  no  'but' 
about  it.  It  is  all  right." 

"  But,"  he  repeated  with  an  insistence  that 
would  not  be  denied,  "but  —  " 

"  Well?  "  queried  she,  seeing  that  something 
troubled  him  too  much  to  be  evaded. 

"  But  who  am  I  ?  "  he  demanded,  so  ear- 


1 8  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

neatly  that  the  absurdity  of  such  a  question 
was  lost  in  its  pathos. 

"Who  are  you?  "she  echoed,  in  bewilder 
ment.  Then,  with  the  instant  reflection  that 
he  was  still  too  near  delirium  and  brain-fever 
to  be  allowed  to  trouble  himself  with  specu 
lations,  she  added,  brightly,  and  with  the  air 
of  one  who  settles  all  possible  doubts,  "  Why, 
you  are  yourself,  of  course." 

She  smiled  so  dazzlingly  as  she  spoke  that 
a  complete  faith  in  her  assurances  mingled 
itself  with  some  dimly  felt  sense  of  the  ludi 
crous  in  the  sick  man's  mind,  and  although 
the  baffled  look  did  not  at  once  disappear 
from  his  face,  yet  he  said  nothing  further,' 
and  not  long  after  he  fell  asleep,  leaving 
Columbine  free  to  seek  her  arbor  again  and 
ponder  on  this  new  phase  of  her  interesting 
case.  She  attached  no  serious  importance 
then  to  the  fact  that  her  patient  seemed  so 
uncertain  concerning  his  identity;  but,  as  the 
days  went  by,  and  he  was  as  completely 
unable  to  answer  his  own  query  as  ever,  a 
strange,  baffled  feeling  stole  over  her ;  a  teas 
ing  sense  of  being  brought  helplessly  face  to 
face  with  a  mystery  to  which  she  had  no  key. 

His  convalescence  was  somewhat  slow,  the 
hurts  he  had  received  having  been  of  a  very 
serious  nature  ;  but  when  he  was  able  to  leave 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  19 

his  room,  and  even  to  accompany  Columbine 
to  her  favorite  arbor,  he  was  still  grappling 
vainly  with  the  problem  of  who  and  what  he 
was. 

This  first  visit  to  the  arbor,  it  should  be 
noted,  was  an  event  in  the  quiet  life  at  the  old 
house.  Columbine  was  full  of  petty  excite 
ment  over  it,  her  fair  cheeks  flushed  and  her 
hair  disordered  with  running  to  and  fro  to 
see  that  the  cushions  were  in  place,  the  sun 
shining  at  the  right  angle,  and  the  breeze 
not  too  fresh.  She  insisted  upon  supporting 
the  sick  man  on  one  side,  while  faithful  old 
Sarah,  her  nurse  in  childhood,  and  since 
promoted  to  fill  at  once  the  place  of  house 
keeper  and  all  the  departed  servants,  took 
his  arm  upon  the  other  to  help  him  along 
the  smoothly  trodden  path  through  the  neg 
lected  garden.  Mr.  Dysart  was  as  usual  in 
his  library,  and  to  disturb  him  there  was  a 
venture  requiring  more  daring  than  either  of 
the  women  possessed.  They  got  on  very  tol 
erably  without  him,  however,  and  the  patient 
was  soon  installed  amid  a  pile  of  wraps  and 
shawls  in  the  summer-house,  where  he  was 
left  in  charge  of  Miss  Dysart,  while  Sarah 
returned  to  her  household  avocations. 

It  was  a  beautiful  day  in  the  beginning  of 
September,  warm  and  golden,  with  all  the 


20  A   BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

mellowness  of  autumn  in  the  air,  while  yet 
the  glow  of  summer  was  not  wholly  lost. 
The  soft  sound  of  water  on  the  shore  was 
heard  through  the  chirping  of  innumerable 
insects,  shrilling  out  their  delight  in  the  heat ; 
while  now  and  then  the  notes  of  a  bird  min 
gled  pleasantly  in  the  harmony.  The  con 
valescent  drew  in  full  breaths  of  the  sweet 
air  with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction,  leaning  back 
among  his  cushions  to  look,  with  the  pleasure 
of  returning  life,  over  the  fair  scene  before 
him. 

For  some  time  nurse  and  patient  sat  silent, 
but  the  girl,  watching  him  intently,  was  in  no 
wise  dissatisfied  with  the  other's  evident  ap 
preciation  of  her  favorite  spot.  Indeed,  she 
had  dreamed  here  of  him  so  often  that  some 
subtle  clairvoyancy  may  have  secretly  put 
him  in  harmony  with  the  place  before  he 
saw  it.  Columbine  liked  him  for  the  pleas 
ure  so  evident  upon  his  handsome,  wasted 
face,  while  inly  she  was  aware  how  great 
would  have  been  her  disappointment  had  he 
been  less  alive  to  the  charms  of  the  view. 

"  How  lovely  it  is !  "  he  said,  at  length. 
"  It  is,  perhaps,  because  you  livre  in  so  lovely 
a  place,"  he  added,  after  a  trifling  pause,  and 
with  a  faint  smile,  "  that  you  are  so  kind  to  a 
waif  like  myself." 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  21 

"  Perhaps,",  she  answered,  returning  his 
smile.  "  But,  really,  we  only  did  what  any 
one  would  have  done  in  our  place." 

"  Oh,  no  ;  and  besides,  few  could  have  done 
it  so  well.  It  is  so  pleasant,  I  seem  to  have 
lived  here  always." 

"  It  may  be,"  Columbine  suggested,  with 
deliberation,  "  that  it  recalls  some  place  you 
have  known." 

A  shadow  came  over  his  face. 

"  It  is  a  pity,"  he  said,  "  that  if  that  un 
lucky  disaster  could  spare  me  nothing  of  my 
baggage,  it  could  not  at  least  have  left  me  my 
few  poor  wits.  I  might  make  an  interesting 
case  for  psychologists.  They  might  discover 
from  me  in  what  part  of  the  brain  the  faculty 
of  memory  is  located,  for  that  wretched  wound 
seems  to  have  let  mine  all  ooze  out  of  my 
cranium.  I  do  not  feel,  Miss  Dysart,  like  an 
idiot  in  all  respects,  since  I  certainly  know  my 
right  hand  from  my  left  ;  and  I  have  found, 
by  experiment  in  the  night-watches,  that  I 
could  still  make  myself  understood  in  two  or 
three  languages." 

"  You  had  much  better  have  slept,"  inter 
polated  his  listener. 

"  But  as  far  as  my  personal  history  goes," 
he  continued,  replying  to  her  words  by  a 
smile,  "  my  mind  is  an  absolute  blank.  I 


22  A   BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

can  give  you  several  interesting  pieces  of 
information  concerning  ancient  history  and 
chronology;  but  I  haven't  the  faintest  idea 
what  my  name  is ;  and  you  must  acknowl 
edge  that  it  is  a  little  hard  for  a  man  to  be 
ignorant  of  his  own  name." 

"  Yes,"  Columbine  assented,  bending  for 
ward  and  clasping  her  hands  in  front  of  her 
knees.  "  Yes ;  and  it  is  so  strange !  Try 
and  remember;  you  must  surely  recollect 
something." 

"I  have  tried;  I  do  try;  but  I  can  only 
conjure  up  a  confused  mass  of  shifting  im 
ages  ;  things  I  seem  to  have  been  and  to  have 
done,  all  indistinguishably  mixed  with  what  I 
have  only  dreamed  or  hoped  to  do  and  be." 

"  How  strange  !  ".she  said  again,  fixing  her 
wide-open  dark  eyes  upon  him,  and  then 
turning  her  gaze  to  the  sea  beyond  ;  "  but  it 
will  come  to  you  in  time." 

"  Heavens  !  "  he  exclaimed,  energetically, 
"  I  hope  so,  else  I  shall  regret  that  you  pulled 
me  out  of  the  water.  To-day  I  do  seem  to 
have  a  glimpse  of  something  more  tangible. 
Since  I  sat  here  I  almost  thought  I  remem 
bered  —  " 

He  broke  off  suddenly,  his  bright  look  fading 
into  an  expression  of  helpless  annoyance. 

"  What?  "  cried  Columbine,  eagerly. 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  23 

"  I  cannot  tell,"  he  groaned.  "  It  is  all 
gone." 

"  Oh,  what  a  pity!  "  exclaimed  she,  spring 
ing  to  her  feet  in  a  flush  of  sympathy  and 
baffled  curiosity.  "  Oh,  how  cruel !  " 

Then  she  remembered  that  she  was  abso 
lutely  disobeying  the  doctor's  orders,  and 
was  allowing  her  patient  to  become  excited. 

"  There,  there,"  she  said,  "  how  wrong  of 
me  to  let  you  worry  !  Everything  will  come 
back  to  you  when  you  are  stronger.  Now 
it  is  time  for  your  luncheon.  It  is  so  warm 
and  bright  you  may  have  it  here  if  you  will 
promise  not  to  bother  your  head.  For  I 
really  think,"  she  added,  wisely,  giving  his 
wraps  a  deft  touch  or  two,  "  that  the  best 
way  to  remember  is  not  to  try." 

"  I  dare  say  you  are  right,"  he  agreed. 
"  At  least  trying  does  n't  seem  to  accomplish 
much." 

She  flitted  away,  to  return  a  moment  or 
two  later  with  an  old-fashioned  salver,  upon 
which,  in  dainty  china  two  or  three  genera 
tions  old,  Sarah  had  arranged  the  invalid's 
luncheon.  She  drew  the  rustic  table  up  to 
his  side  and  served  him,  while  he  ate  with 
that  mixture  of  eagerness  and  disinclination 
which  marks  the  appetite  of  one  in  the  early 
stages  of  a  convalescence. 


24  A  BOOK  O'   NINE    TALES. 

"That  pitcher,"  he  observed,  carelessly,  as 
she  poured  out  the  cream,  "  ought  to  belong 
to  my  past.  It  has  a  familiar  look,  as  if  it 
could  claim  acquaintance  if  it  would  only 
deign." 

"  It  was  my  grandmother's,"  Columbine 
said.  "  When  we  were  little,  Cousin  Tom 
used  to  tease  me  by  saying  my  cheeks  looked 
like  those  of  that  fat  face  on  the  handle.  I 
was  more  buxom  then  than  now." 

Instead  of  replying,  her  companion  laid 
down  his  spoon  and  looked  at  her  in  de 
lighted  amaze.  Then  he  struck  his  hands 
together  with  sudden  vigor. 

"  Tom  !  "  he  cried.     "  Tom  !  " 

"Well?"  queried  she,  looking  at  him  as  if 
he  had  gone  distraught.  "  It  isn't  so  strange 
a  name,  is  it  ?  " 

"But,     don't    you     see?"    he    exclaimed, 
joyously,  —  "I'm    Tom!     I   have    found   my- 
name !  " 


III. 

THE  rest  of  Tom's  name,  however,  re 
mained  as  profoundly  and  as  provokingly 
concealed  in  the  wounded  convolutions  of 
his  brain  as  ever.  Columbine  called  him  Mr. 
Tom,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  famil- 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  2$ 

iarity  of  the  monosyllable,  which  seemed  to 
place  them  at  once  upon  an  intimate  footing, 
had  a  strong  influence  upon  their  relations. 
The  maiden  had  a  crisp  way  of  pronouncing 
the  name,  as  if  she  were  half  conscious  of  a 
spice  of  impropriety  in  a  term  so  familiar, 
and  felt  it,  too,  to  be  something  of  a  joke, 
which  was  so  wholly  fascinating  that  the  pa 
tient  did  not  have  to  be  very  far  advanced 
toward  his  normal  condition  of  health  and 
spirits  to  enjoy  it  so  well  as  to  reflect  that 
the  name  so  rendered  ought  to  be  enough 
for  any  man. 

Mr.  Tom  soon  began  to  gather  up  a  few 
stray  bits  from  his  childhood,  his  memory 
apparently  returning  to  its  former  state  by 
the  same  slow  road  it  had  travelled  from  his 
birth  to  reach  it. 

"  I  remember  a  few  beginnings,"  he  had 
said,  hopefully,  on  the  day  following  that  of 
his  first  visit  to  the  arbor.  "  I  had  a  carved 
coral  of  a  most  luscious  pink  color.  It  is 
even  now  vaguely  connected  in  my  mind 
with  the  idea  of  eating;  so  I  infer  that  I 
must  have  cherished  a  fond  delusion  that  it 
was  good  to  eat." 

"  It  is  at  least  good  to  remember,"  Colum 
bine  returned,  laughing.  "  It  would  n't  be  a 
bad  idea  to  open  an  account  of  things  re- 


26  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

covered  from  the  sea  of  the  past.  You  can 
begin  by  putting  down:  Item,  one  coral." 

"  Yes ;  and  one  nurse.  I  distinctly  recall 
the  nurse.  She  had  a  large  mole  on  her 
chin.  Yes  ;  I  can  certainly  swear  to  the 
nurse." 

He  was  in  excellent  spirits  to-day.  The 
dawning  of  recollection  gave  promise  of 
the  restoration  of  complete  remembrance; 
the  day  was  enchanting;  his  appetite  and  his 
luncheon  came  to  a  wonderfully  good  agree 
ment,  while  a  prettier  serving-maid  than  Miss 
Dysart  could  hardly  be  found. 

"  It  must  be  very  like  being  a  child  again," 
she  observed,  thoughtfully ;  "  and  that  is  a 
thing,  you  know,  for  which  the  poets  are 
always  sighing." 

"  You  will  have  the  advantage  of  growing 
up  with  me,"  was  his  gay  retort,  "  if  this 
process  continues.  Only  you'll  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  superior  age." 

After  that  he  told  her  each  morning  what 
he  had  been  able  to  recover  from  forgetful- 
ness  since  the  previous  day.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  the  strangeness  of  this  relation. 
It  possessed  all  the  piquancy  of  fiction  to 
which  its  ingenious  author  added  new  inci 
dents  from  day  to  day ;  yet  it  had,  too,  the 
strong  attractiveness  of  truth  and  personal 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  2/ 

interest.  Columbine  listened  and  commented, 
deeply  engrossed  and  fascinated  by  the  novel 
experience  which  gave  her  an  acquaintance 
with  the  entire  past  life  of  her  stranger  guest, 
yet  an  acquaintance  which  was  etherealized 
and  marked  by  a  certain  charm  not  to  be 
found  in  actual  companionship.  Had  she 
really  shared  the  childhood  thus  narrated  to 
her  it  would  have  been  in  no  way  remark 
able  ;  but  now  she  seemed  to  live  it  herself, 
with  a  vitality  and  interest  more  vivid  each 
day.  Often  the  freakish  faculty,  upon  whose 
vigor  depended  the  continuity  of  Mr.  Tom's 
narration,  would  for  days  concern  itself  with 
the  veriest  trifles,  advancing  the  essentials 
of  the  story  not  a  whit ;  or,  again,  it  \vould 
seem  to  turn  perversely  backward,  although 
no  efforts  availed  to  speed  it  forward. 

The  main  facts  of  Mr.  Tom's  story,  so  far 
as  they  were  gathered  up  in  the  first  week  of 
this  odd  story-telling,  were  as  follows:  He 
made  his  acquaintance  with  the  world  doubly 
orphaned,  his  father  being  lost  at  sea  upon 
a  return  voyage  from  India  before  the  boy's 
birth,  and  his  mother  dying  in  childbed. 
Reflecting  upon  what  he  was  able  to  recall, 
Tom  concluded  that  his  parents  were  persons 
of  wealth.  His  surroundings  had  at  least 
been  luxurious.  The  truth  was,  as  he  came, 


28  A  BOOK  a   NINE   TALES. 

in  time,  to  remember,  that,  being  left  without 
near  relatives,  he  had  been,  by  his  guardian, 
confided  to  the  care  of  trusty  people,  who 
spoiled  and  adored  him  until  he  was  trans 
ferred  to  boarding-school. 

"  I  have  grown  to  be  a  dozen  years  old," 
Tom  remarked  to  Miss  Dysart  one  afternoon 
as  they  sat  in  the  arbor,  she  sewing,  and  he 
idly  pulling  to  pieces  a  purple  aster.  "  I 
have  even  conducted  myself  to  boarding- 
school,  and  I  cannot  conceive  why  I  can't 
get  hold  of  my  family  name.  I  must  have 
been  called  by  it  sometimes.  I  remember 
being  dubbed  Tom,  Tommy,  Thomas,  —  that 
was  when  I  was  stubborn  ;  Tom  Titmouse  — 
that  was  by  nurse;  Tom  Tattamus —  that  by 
the  particularly  odious  small  boy  next  door; 
but  beyond  that  I  might  as  well  never  have 
had  a  name  at  all.  My  trunks,  I  know,  were 
marked  with  a  big  W,  but  all  the  names  be 
ginning  with  that  letter  that  I  can  hit  upon 
seem  equally  strange  to  me.  I  do  not  see 
why,  of  all  things,  it  is  precisely  that  which 
I  cannot  remember." 

"  It  is  because  you  worry  about  it,"  his 
companion  suggested;  "probably  that  par 
ticular  spot  in  your  brain  where  your  name 
is  lodged  is  kept  irritated  by  your  impa 
tience." 


A   STRANGE  IDYL  29 

"  Heavens  !  "  laughed  he.  "  How  psycho 
logic  and  physiological  you  are !  Well,  if 
I  Ve  no  name,  I  can  invent  one,  I  suppose." 

"  Or  make  one.  Do  you  realize  what  a 
fascinating  position  you  are  in?  Common 
mortals  have  only  the  consolation  of  specu 
lating  about  their  future ;  but  you  can  also 
amuse  yourself  with  boundless  speculations 
concerning  your  past.  You  are  relieved  from 
all  responsibility  —  " 

"  Oh,  no,"  he  interrupted ;  "  that  is  the 
worst  of  it.  I  have  responsibilities  without 
knowing  what  they  are.  The  past  holds  me 
like  a  giant  from  behind,  and  I  cannot  even 
see  my  captor." 

"  Oh,  you  look  at  it  all  too  seriously !  " 
Columbine  returned.  "  You  can  fashion  your 
past,  as  we  all  do  our  futures,  just  as  you  like. 
I  think  you  are  decidedly  to  be  envied." 

"  Envied  !  " 

The  bitterness  of  the  exclamation  brought 
to  her  a  sudden  realization  of  the  difference 
of  their  points  of  view,  and  revealed  how 
deep  was  the  man's  humiliation  at  his  help 
less  position.  A  quick  flush  of  pity  and  sym 
pathy  mantled  her  cheek. 

"Forgive  me,"  she  exclaimed,  impulsively. 
"  I  had  no  right  to  be  so  thoughtless.  I 
beg  your  pardon." 


30  A  BOOK   O'  NINE   TALES. 

"  There  is  no  occasion.  You  are  right.  It 
is  certainly  better  to  laugh  than  to  cry  over 
the  inevitable,  especially  as  things  are  right 
ing  themselves.  But  we,  or,  rather,  I,  must 
go  into  the  house.  It  is  growing  cool." 


IV. 


LlFE  at  the  old  Dysart  place  went  forward 
in  a  slow  and  decorous  fashion,  little  allied 
to  the  bustling  manners  of  the  present  day. 
Mr.  Dysart  was  getting  now  to  be  an  old 
man,  albeit  it  is  doubtful  if  in  any  abundant 
sense  he  can  ever  have  been  a  young  one. 
In  any  case  he  had,  by  long  burrowing  among 
musty  records  and  genealogical  parchments, 
acquired  a  dry  and  antique  appearance,  as, 
to  use  a  somewhat  presumptuous  yet  not  in 
exact  metaphor,  certain  scholarly  worms  had 
taken  on  a  brown  hue  from  continued  dining 
on  the  bindings  of  his  venerable  folios.  He 
inhabited  a  remote  and  essentially  unworldly 
sphere,  from  which  the  existence  of  his 
daughter  was  wholly  separate.  He  was  con 
scious  of  her  presence  in  an  unrealizing 
way;  was  even  aware  that  just  now  she  had 
in  the  house  a  guest  who  had  come  ashore 
from  a  wreck.  But  that  was  the  affair  of 


A  STRANGE  IDYL,  31 

Columbine  and  old  Sarah;  he  could  not  of 
course  be  expected  to  loosen  his  hold  upon 
the  clew  which  he  hoped  would  lead  him  to 
the  exact  connection  between  the  Dysarts 
and  the  Van  Rensselaers  of  two  generations 
back,  to  pay  attention  to  a  chance  waif  from 
that  outer  world  with  which  he  had  never 
considered  it  worth  his  while  to  concern 
himself. 

As  far  as  Mr.  Tom  was  concerned,  Mr. 
Dysart  might  as  well  not  have  existed.  They 
did  once  meet  in  the  passage  before  the 
study  door  when  the  invalid  in  his  first  days 
of  walking  was  one  rainy  morning  wandering 
restlessly  about  the  halls ;  but  the  owner  of 
the  house  hurried  furtively  past,  as  if  he  were 
the  interloper  and  the  other  lord  of  the 
manor;  and  even  when  the  convalescent  was 
well  enough  to  join  the  family  at  table,  Mr. 
Dysart  was  very  seldom  there,  so  that  the 
meals  were  for  the  most  part  taken  tete-a-tete 
by  Columbine  and  her  patient. 

The  result  of  such  a  situation  is  evident 
from  the  beginning.  Exceptional  natures 
might  be  imagined,  perhaps,  that  would  not 
have  grown  dangerously  interested  in  each 
other  under  such  circumstances;  but  at  least 
these  two  drew  every  day  closer  together. 
Neither  had  any  tie  belonging  to  the  past; 


32  A   BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

or,  more  exactly,  Columbine  had  none,  and 
he,  for  the  time  being,  at  least,  had  no  past. 
His  helplessness  and  the  mystery  enshroud 
ing  him  would  have  appealed  to  the  heart  of 
any  woman,  and  Columbine  had  no  distrac 
tions  to  fill  her  life  and  crowd  out  this  ever- 
deepening  interest.  Of  Mr.  Tom,  her  beauty 
and  freshness,  her  simplicity,  which  \vas  so 
far  removed  from  insipidity,  her  innocence, 
which  never  suggested  ignorance,  won  the  re 
spect  and  admiration  long  before  he  was  con 
scious  that  love,  too,  was  growing  in  his  heart. 

There  came  a  day,  however,  when  he  could 
no  longer  be  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  his 
feelings. 

The  two  had  gone  past  the  arbor  and  down 
to  the  shore.  Columbine  was  seated  upon  a 
rock,  while  Tom  lay  at  her  feet,  idly  tossing 
pebbles  into  a  pool  left  among  the  sea-weed 
by  the  ebbing  tide.  The  maiden  wore  that 
day  a  dress  of  gray  flannel,  almost  the  color 
of  the  stone  upon  which  she  sat,  trimmed 
with  a  velvet  of  orange  which  no  complexion 
less  brilliant  than  hers  could  have  endured. 
She  twisted  in  her  fingers  a  spray  of  golden- 
rod,  yellow-coated  harbinger  of  autumn. 

"  The  summer  is  gone,"  Columbine  re 
marked,  pensively.  "  It  is  getting  late  even 
for  golden-rod." 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  33 

"  Yes,"  he  echoed,  "  the  summer  is  gone. 
I  lost  so  much  of  it  I  hardly  realize — " 

lie  broke  off  suddenly,  a  new  thought  seiz 
ing  him. 

"  Why  !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  how  long  I  have 
been  here  !  I  ought  to  have  taken  myself  oft" 
your  hands  long  ago.  How  you  must  think 
I  abuse  your  hospitality !  " 

"Nonsense!"  she  returned,  brightly ;  "you 
of  course  cannot  go  until  you  are  well.  It 
is  necessary  that  you  at  least  conjure  from 
the  past  the  rest  of  your  name  before  you 
start  out  into  the  world  again.  Make  your 
self  as  comfortable  as  you  can,  Mr.  Tom  ; 
you  won't  be  let  loose  for  a  long  time  to 
come  yet." 

Despite  the  lightness  of  her  manner  her 
companion  fancied  he  detected  a  shade  of 
some  hitherto  unnoted  feeling  in  her  words; 
but  whether  dread  of  his  departure  or  desire 
to  be  rid  of  him  he  could  not  divine.  The 
latter  thought  struck  him  with  a  sudden  chill. 
The  love  which  had  been  fostered  in  his  mind 
by  this  close  and  intimate  companionship 
was  not  unmixed  at  this  moment  with  a  fear 
of  being  thrown  upon  his  own  resources  while 
ignorant  alike  of  his  place  and  his  name.  He 
clung  strongly  to  Columbine  as  to  one  who 
understood  and  sympathized  with  his  strange 
3 


34  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

mental  weakness.  The  color  flamed  into  his 
pale  cheeks  with  a  sudden  throb  of  intense 
emotion ;  then  faded,  to  leave  him  whiter 
than  ever. 

"  Besides,"  Columbine  continued,  after  a 
moment's  pause,  her  glance  still  downcast, 
"why  shouldn't  you  stay?  Your  being  here 
make£  no  difference  to  papa;  he  smokes  and 
grubs  after  the  roots  of  his  ancestral  tree  the 
same  as  ever;  and  as  for  me,"  lifting  her 
eyes  with  a  sudden  smile  that  showed  all  her 
dimples,  "  you  know  how  much  you  amuse 
me.  You  are  as  good  as  a  continued  story, 
and  are  alive,  too,  the  last  being  a  good 
deal  in  this  desert." 

He  returned  her  smile  with  effort.  His 
moment  of  intense  feeling  had  so  overpow 
ered  him  that  he  felt  weak  and  faint. 

"  How  white  you  are !  "  she  exclaimed, 
noting  the  wanness  of  his  face ;  "  you  should 
have  had  your  bouillon  long  ago.  A  pretty 
condition  you  are  in  to  go  roaming  off  by 
yourself  !  " 

She  tripped  lightly  off  towards  the  house 
for  the  forgotten  nourishment,  and  Mr.  Tom 
was  left  to  his  reflections.  He  raised  himself, 
as  her  graceful  figure  vanished,  then  sank 
back  upon  his  rug  with  something  like  a 
groan.  All  in  an  instant  the  knowledge  had 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  35 

come  to  him  that  he  loved  her.  He  had  gone 
on  from  day  to  day  conscious  only  of  thinking 
of  his  own  history,  which,  bit  by  bit, -he  was 
disinterring  from  the  past,  as  men  bring  to 
light  some  buried  city,  and  insensibly  Col 
umbine  had  become  dear  to  him  before  he 
was  aware. 

He  buried  his  face  in  his  hands  in  a  despair 
which  was  in  part  the  result  of  his  strange 
mental  confusion  ;  in  part  arose  from  his  phy 
sical  weakness.  He  did  not  reflect  then  that 
his  case  was  not  necessarily  hopeless ;  that 
nothing  in  his  life  which  remembrance  had 
recovered  need  raise  a  barrier  between  him 
self  and  Columbine.  Afterward  this  thought 
came  to  him  and  brought  comfort;  now  he 
was  overwhelmed  by  a  sense  of  impotent  mis 
ery.  Helpless  in  the  hand  of  fate,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  this  love,  of  which  he  was  newly 
aware,  was  but  a  fresh  device  of  malignant 
destiny.  He  did  not  even  consider  whether 
his  affection  might  be  returned ;  he  only  felt 
the  impossibility  of  offering  his  broken  life  to 
Columbine,  —  of  binding  her  to  a  past  that 
was  uncertain  and  a  future  that  was  insecure. 

Tears  of  weakness,  and  scorn  of  that  weak 
ness,  came  into  his  eyes.  Their  traces  were 
still  visible  when  Columbine  returned. 

"  Come,"  she  said,   ignoring  the  signs   of 


36  A  BOOK   a   NINE    TALES. 

his  agitation,  "  you  have  told  me  nothing  on 
the  story  to-day.  Just  down  there,"  indicat 
ing  by  a  pretty  sweep  of  the  hand  a  little 
pebbly  cove  lying  just  below  them,  "  is  where 
Sarah  and  I  found  you." 

"  And  I  would  to  God,"  cried  poor  Tom 
with  sudden  fierceness,  "that  you  had  left  me 
there." 

Columbine  made,  for  the  moment,  no  reply 
to  this  outburst.  She  insisted  upon  his  drink 
ing  his  bouillon,  despite  his  protests  of  disin 
clination,  and  then  brought  him  back  to  the 
tale  of  his  life. 

.  "There  is  an  air  of  improbability  about 
my  story,"  he  said,  after  a  little  musing. 
"  Indeed,  so  much  so  that  I  myself  begin  to 
doubt  the  truth  of  it.  In  the  first  place  it 
seems  particularly  arranged  to  baffle  inquiry. 
Whenever  I  recall  a  person  to  whom  I  might 
send  for  verification  or  information,  I  straight 
way  remember  that  he  is  dead,  or  that  my 
wanderings  have  carried  me  beyond  his 
knowledge.  I  am  apparently  as  far  as  ever 
from  knowing  who  I  am  or  what  I  am.  And, 
besides,  suppose  your  beautiful  theory,  that 
my  memory  acts  as  it  does  because  the  im 
pressions  of  youth  are  strongest,  is  not  true? 
You  put  me  in  the  same  category  with  those 
whose  memory  is  weakened  by  age ;  but  this 


A   STRANGE  IDYL.  37 

may  be  all  moonshine.  Perhaps  this  history, 
to  which  I  am  painfully  adding  every  day,  is 
something  I  have  read,  and  only  a  fiction 
after  all." 

"  But  why  suppose  so  many  tormenting 
things?  "  returned  Columbine,  brightly.  "The 
fault  of  the  age,  they  say,  —  we  know  very 
little  of  it  here,  but  cousin  Tom  sends  me  a 
paper  occasionally, —  is  unrest;  and  whoever 
you  are,  a  little  tranquillity  will  scarcely  be 
likely  to  harm  you.  Go  on  with  the  life  and 
adventures,  and  never  mind  now  whether 
they  are  true  or  not.  At  least  they  are  in 
teresting.  You  broke  off  yesterday  in  a  most 
exciting  account  of  a  tiger  hunt." 

"Ah,  yes;  I  got  the  rest  of  it  together 
this  morning.  Where  did  I  leave  off  ?  Had 
we  reached  the  second  jungle?  " 


V. 

TlIE  salt  meadows  were  on  fire.  The  pun 
gent  odor  of  burning  peat  and  saline  grasses 
floated  over  the  Dysart  place  and  about  the 
arbor  one  October  morning  when  Tom  sat 
there  meditating.  He  was  thinking  of  Col 
umbine,  and  of  his  passion  for  her.  His 
health  now  seemed  firmly  re-establishing  it 
self,  and  his  memory  had  gone  on  over  the 


38  A  BOOK  O'    NINE   TALES. 

old  track  of  his  life  in  its  singular  method  of 
progression  until  he  felt  confident  that  he 
should  ultimately  be  in  possession  of  all  his 
past.  He  reviewed  what  he  remembered,  as 
he  sat  this  morning  inhaling  the  aromatic 
scent  of  the  burning  lowlands,  and  the  result 
was  not  unsatisfactory.  He  had  recovered 
from  oblivion  his  life  up  to  the  time,  three 
years  before,  when  he  took  passage  home 
from  India,  and  his  financial  affairs  at  that 
period  were  in  an  eminently  satisfactory  posi 
tion.  He  recalled  that  he  had  been  regarded 
on  shipboard  as  a  person  of  more  conse 
quence  than  the  British  officer  who,  with  his 
daughter,  occupied  the  cabin  of  the  India- 
man  with  him ;  and  he  trusted  that  no  un 
toward  circumstances  of  the  interval  had 
placed  him  in  a  condition  less  desirable. 

He  had  reconciled  himself  to  remaining  at 
the  Dysart  mansion  by  turning  over  to  old 
Sarah  a  goodly  portion  of  the  money  con 
tained  in  his  travelling-belt,  and  blessed  him 
self  that  his  wandering  life  had  led  him  to 
form  the  habit  of  always  going  thus  provided. 
He  sat  now  waiting  for  Columbine  to  appear, 
and  fondly  picturing  to  himself  the  delight 
of  telling  his  love  when  the  time  came  that  he 
dare  speak.  Each  day  increased  his  attach 
ment,  and  he  believed,  as  every  lover  will, 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  39 

that  his  love  was  returned.  A  smile  of 
brooding  contentment,  so  deep  that  even  the 
impatience  of  his  passion  could  not  disturb 
it,  dwelt  upon  his  face  as  he  inhaled  the  fra 
grant  odors  from  the  burning  marshes,  and 
listened  for  the  step  of  the  maiden  he  loved. 

She  came  at  last,  moving  along  the  garden 
paths  between  the  faded  shrubs,  a  gracious 
and  winning  figure.  She  was  dressed  that 
morning  in  a  gown  of  russet  wool,  with  a 
bunch  of  gold  and  crimson  leaves  at  her 
throat,  and  never,  in  Tom's  eyes,  had  she 
looked  so  lovely. 

"  I  should  n't  have  been  so  late  in  getting 
here,"  she  said,  as  she  took  her  accustomed 
seat,  "  but  Sarah  is  greatly  concerned  about 
the  fire  in  the  salt  marshes.  She  says  it  is 
thirty  years  since  they  burnt  over,  and  she 
presages  all  sorts  of  dire  calamities  from  that 
fact." 

"That  they  haven't  burnt  over  for  thirty 
years?  " 

"  Well,"  Columbine  returned  with  a  pout, 
"  she  is  not  at  all  clear  what  she  does  mean, 
so  it  is  n't  to  be  expected  that  I  shall  be. 
We  will  go  on  with  the  life  and  adventures, 
if  you  please." 

"  But  suppose  I  have  n't  remembered  any 
thing  more?" 


40  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

"Nonsense,"  retorted  pretty  Columbine; 
"you  never  really  remember.  I  am  con 
vinced  that  you  make  it  all  up  as  you  go 
along;  but  you  tell  it  so  seriously  that  it 
might  as  well  be  true.  And  in  any  case  it 
does  credit  to  your  powers  of  imagination." 

His  story  now  was  of  his  voyage  from 
Calcutta.  He  told  of  moonlight  nights  in 
the  Indian  ocean,  of  long  days  of  sunny 
idling  on  deck,  and  all  the  pleasant  details 
of  a  prosperous  voyage  over  Southern  seas. 

"  Miss  Grant  was  n't  very  pretty,"  he  ob 
served,  lying  lazily  back  and  looking  up  into 
the  blue  October  sky,  "  at  least  not  as  I  re 
member  her ;  but  she  was  very  good  com 
pany,  only  a  little  given  to  sentimentalizing. 
She  had  a  guitar,  and  I  will  confess  I  did 
hate  to  see  that  guitar  come  out." 

"  She  would  be  pleased  if  she  could  hear 
you,"  laughed  Columbine.  "  What  was  there 
so  frightful  about  her  guitar?" 

"  Oh,  when  she  had  that  she  always  sang 
moony  songs,  and  after  that  —  " 

"Well?"  demanded  Miss  Dysart,  mischiev 
ously. 

"  Oh,  after  that,"  he  returned,  with  an  im 
patient  shake  of  his  shoulders,  "  she  was  sure 
to  talk  sentiment." 

His    companion    laughed    merrily.       The 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  41 

faint,  almost  unconscious  feeling  of  jealousy 
which  had  risen  at  the  mention  of  this  en 
gaging  young  lady  had  vanished  entirely  in 
the  indifference  with  which  Mr.  Tom  spoke 
of  her.  She  moved  her  head  with  a  happy 
little  motion  not  unlike  that  with  which  a 
bird  plumes  itself.  Her  soft,  low  laugh  did 
not  really  end,  but  lost  itself  among  the 
dimples  of  her  cheeks. 

Tom  regarded  her  with  shining  eyes. 

"  Not  that  I  should  mind  some  people's 
talking  sentiment,"  he  said  with  a  smile. 

She  raised  her  laughing  gaze  to  his,  and, 
as  their  eyes  met,  the  meaning  of  the  look 
in  his  was  too  plain  to  be  mistaken.  She 
flushed  and  paled,  dropping  her  gaze  from 
his. 

"And  did  nothing  especial  happen  on  the 
voyage?"  she  asked,  with  a  strong  effort  to 
regain  her  careless  manner. 

"  Not  that  I  recall,"  he  answered,  putting 
his  hand  beside  hers  upon  the  rustic  table  so 
that  their  fingers  almost  touched. 

A  moment  of  silence  followed,  broken  only 
by  the  chirping  of  a  few  belated  crickets, 
that,  despite  the  advancement  of  the  season, 
had  not  yet  discontinued  their  autumnal  con 
certs.  The  two,  so  quiet  outwardly,  sat  with 
beating  hearts,  when  suddenly  a  wandering 


42  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

breeze  brought  into  the  summer-house  a  puff 
of  smoke  from  the  burning  salt  meadows.  It 
was  laden  with  the  fetid  odor  of  consuming 
animal  matter,  and  so  powerful  was  it  that 
both  involuntarily  turned  away  their  heads. 

"  Bah  !  "  Columbine  cried.  "  How  horri 
ble  !  There  must  be  a  dead  animal  of  some 
sort  there  that  the  fire  has  reached." 

She  stopped  speaking  and  gazed  with  sur 
prise  at  Tom,  who  had  buried  his  face  in  his 
hands  with  a  groan. 

"What  is  it?  Has  it  made  you  ill?  It  is 
gone  now." 

He  lifted  a  face  white  with  emotion. 

"No,"  he  said,  "it  has  not  made  me  ill, — 
physically,  that  is ;  but  it  has  done  worse,  it 
has  made  me  remember." 

"  Ah  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  What  is  it?  is  it 
so  terrible?  " 

She  leaned  toward  him,  and  to  poor  Tom 
she  looked  the  incarnation  of  enticing  loveli 
ness.  Sympathy  and  interest  —  not  unmixed, 
she  being  a  woman,  with  curiosity  —  sparkled 
in  her  eyes,  yet  he  nerved  himself  to  tell  her 
all  that  had  come  back  to  him. 

"  That  smell  of  burning  hide,"  he  began, 
"  brought  it  all  up  in  a  flash.  The  ship  got 
on  fire;  Miss  Grant  clung  to  me;  there  was 
just  such  an  odor  leaking  out  around  the 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  43 

hatches  from  the  hold  where  the  flames  were 
at  the  cargo;  she — I  —  when  everything  else 
was  right,  when  the  fire  was  out,  I  was  all 
wrong." 

"  I  do  not  understand,"  Columbine  said. 

She  drew  away  from  him,  her  cheeks  pale, 
her  very  Tips  wan.  She  did  not  meet  his 
gaze,  but  sat  with  downcast  eyes. 

"  I  was  engaged  to  Miss  Grant.  I  did  not 
pretend  to  love  her,  but  I  thought  we  were 
all  bound  for  the  bottom,  and"  — 

He  stopped  helplessly;  her  eyes  flashed 
upon  him. 

"  And  if  a  lie  would  soothe  her  last  mo 
ments,"  she  said,  bitterly,  "  you  —  No,  no  ;  I 
beg  your  pardon." 

"  I  remember  more,"  he  went  on,  wrench 
ing  each  word  out  as  if  by  a  strong  effort  of 
will.  "  The  shock,  and,  perhaps,  previous 
seeds  of  disease,  were  too  much  for  her 
father;  he  died  the  day  before  we  landed. 
She  was  alone  in  the  world,  she  had  no 
protector,  and  I — I  married  her  at  once,  to 
protect  her." 

A  sparrow  flew  up  into  the  lattice  outside 
the  arbor  without  noticing  the  pair  within, 
so  dead  was  the  stillness  which  now  fell  upon 
them.  At  length  Columbine  rose  and  stood 
an  instant  by  the  table  which  had  been  be- 


44  A   BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

tween  them.  She  wavered  an  instant,  then 
stooped  and  kissed  him  upon  the  forehead. 
Then  without  a  word  she  turned  from  the 
arbor  and  fled  swiftly  to  the  house. 


VI. 

LEFT  alone  in  the  summer-house  Tom's 
first  feeling  was  a  great  throb  of  joy;  but 
it  gave  place  almost  instantly  to  an  aching 
pang  of  misery.  To  be  assured  of  Colum 
bine's  love  would  have  been  intense  happi 
ness  an  hour  before ;  now  it  could  only  add 
to  his  pain.  He  raged  against  the  toils  in 
which  fate  had  entangled  him,  yet  defiance 
to  helplessness  and  every  paroxysm  of  rage 
at  destiny  ended  in  a  new  and  humiliating 
consciousness  of  his  own  impotence.  He  felt 
like  one  who  walked  blindfolded,  with  light 
granted  him,  not  to  avoid  missteps,  but  merely 
to  see  them  after  they  were  taken. 

One  thing  at  least  was  clear  to  Tom,- — that 
he  must  leave  the  Dysart  mansion.  To  go 
on  seeing  Columbine  day  after  day,  with  the 
knowledge  at  once  of  their  love  and  of  the 
barrier  that  stood  between  them,  was  a  posi 
tion  too  painful  and  too  anomalous  to  be 
endured.  Both  for  his  own  sake  and  for  Miss 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  45 

Dysart's  it  was  necessary  that  he  delay  no 
longer.  Where  he  was  going  he  was  not  at 
all  clear;  that  he  left  to  circumstances  to 
decide.  He  quitted  the  arbor  and  walked 
toward  the  house,  so  intent  upon  his  painful 
thoughts  that  at  a  turning  of  the  path  he 
ran  plump  against  old  Sarah,  who  was  hurry 
ing  along  with  a  face  full  of  anxiety. 

"  Oh,  mercy  gracious,  Mr.  Thomas  !  '"  the 
faithful  creature  cried;  "  I'm  sure  I  beg  your 
pardon  !  But  you  look  as  if  you  'd  seen  a 
ghost !  " 

"  So  I  have/'  he  answered.  "  Where  are 
you  going  with  that  spade?'' 

"  To  the  salt  meadows,"  she  answered. 
"  The  fire 's  sure  to  come  into  the  lower 
garden  if  we  don't  ditch  it,  and  if  it  docs, 
there  '11  be  no  stopping  it  from  the  house." 

"What!"  exclaimed  Tom.  "Where  are 
the  men?  " 

"  There  ain't  no  men,"  old  Sarah  returned, 
philosophically.  "  Why  should  there  be?" 

"  But  you  arc  not  going  down  to  ditch 
alone?" 

"  'D  I  be  likely  to  stop  in-doors  and  let 
the  house  where  I  've  lived  fifty  years  burn 
over  my  head?"  demanded  she,  grimly. 

"  Give  me  the  spade,"  was  his  reply.  "A 
little  work  will  do  me 


46  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALE. 

Old  Sarah  remonstrated,  but  it  ended  in 
the  strangely  matched  pair  going  together 
to  the  meadows  below. 

The  dry  sphagnum  was  readily  cut  through 
with  the  spade,  and  it  was  not  a  difficult, 
although  a  slow  task,  to  dig  a  wide,  shallow 
trench  between  the  stretch  of  burning  moss 
and  the  gardens.  Once  the  ditch  was  com 
plete,  it  would  be  easy  to  fight  the  fire  on  the 
home  side,  since  there  was  nothing  ,swift  or 
fierce  about  the  conflagration,  it  being  rather 
a  sullen,  relentless  smouldering  of  the  moss 
and  grass-roots,  dry  from  the  long  drought. 

Zealously  as  the  two  labored,  the  fire  gained 
upon  them,  and  as  they  worked,  they  could 
not  but  cast  despairing  glances  at  the  long 
stretch  of  garden  which  lay  still  unprotected. 

Meanwhile  Columbine  from  her  window 
had  seen  the  laborers,  and,  in  a  moment  real 
izing  the  danger,  she  flew  to  the  library. 

"Father,"  she  cried,  "the  salt  marshes 
have  been  burning  all  day,  and  the  fire  is 
almost  up  to  the  garden." 

"  Good  heavens,  Columbine,  how  impetu 
ous  you  are  !  You  have  quite  driven  out  of 
my  head  what  became  of  the  second  son 
of—" 

"  But,  father,"  she  interrupted,  impatiently, 
"  do  you  realize  that  if  you  sit  here  pother- 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  47 

ing  about  second  sons  the  house  may  be 
burned  over  our  heads?" 

"  Burned  !  "  exclaimed  the  genealogist,  in 
dismay  ;  "  and  all  my  papers  scattered  about ! 
Oh,  help  me,  Columbine,  to  pack  up  my 
notes ;  but  don't  take  up  anything  without 
asking  me  where  it  goes.  Do  you  think  that 
iron-bound  trunk  will  hold  them  all?" 

Fearing  to  trust  herself  to  reply,  Columbine 
darted  from  the  library,  leaving  her  father  to 
the  half-frenzied  collection  of  his  papers,  and 
betook  herself  to  the  salt  meadows,  where, 
grimed  with  smoke,  Tom  and  the  old  serv 
ing  woman  were  sturdily  laboring.  The  pun 
gent  smoke  eddied  about  them,  and  already 
old  Sarah's  gown  showed  marks  of  having 
been  on  fire  in  a  dozen  places.  Columbine 
stood  upon  the  descending  path  a  moment 
and  regarded  them  ;  then,  with  a  step  which 
bespoke  determination,  she  went  on  and 
joined  them. 

"  Go  back  !  "  shouted  Tom,  hoarsely,  as 
she  approached;  "don't  you  see  how  the 
sparks  are  flying  about?  You'll  be  a-fire 
before  you  know  it." 

And,  indeed,  the  fire  was  becoming  %more 
active  as  it  crept  nearer  to  the  edges  of  the 
meadows,  where  the  grass  was  taller.  The 
word  of  warning  had  hardly  left  Tom's  lips 


48  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

before  she  found  her  dress  burning,  and 
while,  being  of  wool,  it  was  easily  extin 
guished,  Tom  found  in  it  an  excuse  for  tak 
ing  her  in  his  arms  to  smother  the  flame. 

"  Go  back  to  the  house,''  he  said,  in  a  voice 
which  was  full  of  feeling,  yet  which  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  disobey.  "  We  shall 
save  the  place  ;  but  I  cannot  work  while  you 
arc  in  danger." 

"And  you?"  she  demanded,  clasping  her 
hands  upon  his  arm. 

"  Nonsense  !  there  is  no  danger  for  me," 
he  returned,  smiling  tenderly.  "  Don't  think 
of  me." 

It  was  not  until  late  in  the  night  that  the 
contest  against  the  fire  was  concluded.  Tom 
worked  with  an  energy  in  which  desperation 
had  a  large  place,  while  old  Sarah,  with  the 
pathetic  fidelity  of  an  animal,  labored  by  his 
side,  indefatigable  and  unmurmuring.  Faint 

O  c!> 

streaks  of  light  had  begun  to  show  in  the 
east  when  Tom  flung  down  the  spade,  upon 
which  he  had  been  leaning,  for  a  last  close 
scrutiny. 

"  It  is  all  right  no\v,''  he  said  ;  "  there  can't 
possibly  be  any  fire  left  on  this  side  of  the 
marshes.  It  was  lucky  for  us  that  the  tide 
rose  into  the  lower  part  of  the  trench." 

Undemonstratively,  as  she  had  worked,  old 


A   STRANGE  IDYL  49 

Sarah  gathered  herself  together,  grimy,  stoop 
ing,  quivering  with  weariness  and  hunger,  and 
crept  back  to  the  house  they  had  saved ; 
while  Tom,  with  tired  step,  climbed  the  path 
and  took  his  way  past  the  summer-house 
toward  the  other  side  of  the  mansion.  As  he 
passed  the  arbor  something  stirred  within. 

"Columbine!  "  he  said,  in  surprise,  recog 
nizing  by  some  instinct  that  it  was  she. 
"Why,  Columbine,  what  are  you  here  for? 
You  will  be  chilled  to  death." 

"  You  sent  me  away,"  returned  the  girl, 
with  a  trace  of  dogged  protest  in  her  voice. 
"  You  would  n't  let  me  help." 

"  I  should  hope  not,"  laughed  Tom,  nerv 
ously,  taking  off  his  hat  and  passing  his  hand 
through  his  hair,  from  which  odors  of  smoke 
flowed  as  he  stirred  it.  "  You  were  hardly 
made  to  fight  fire." 

"  No/'  she  answered,  with  sudden  and  sig 
nificant  vehemence,  "  I  was  not  made  to  fight 
fire." 

He  moved  uneasily  where  he  stood  in  the 
darkness ;  then  he  took  a  stride  forward  and 
sat  down  beside  her.  The}-  were  silent  a  mo 
ment,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  first  far  sign  of 
dawn,  while  hers  searched  the  gloom  for  his 
features. 

"  Columbine,"  he  began,  at  length,  in  a 
4 


50  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

voice  of  strange  softness,  "  it  would  have  been 
better  for  us  both  if  I  had  never  come  here." 

"  No,  no,"  was  her  eager  reply;  "  I  cannot 
have  you  say  that.  You  have  put  savor  into 
my  life  that  was  so  vapid  before." 

"But  a  bitter  savor,"  he  said. 

"  Bitter,  yes,"  Columbine  returned  in  a 
voice  which,  though  low  and  restrained,  be 
trayed  the  fierceness  of  her  excitement. 
"  Bitter  as  death  ;  but  sweet  too,  sweet  as  — 

She  left  the  sentence  unfinished.  Below 
on  the  shore  the  full  tide  was  lapping  the 
stones  with  monotonous  melody.  Save  for 
their  iterance,  the  stillness  was  almost  as 
deep  as  the  marvellous  silence  of  a  winter 
night  which  no  sound  of  living  thing  breaks. 

"  Whatever  comes,"  Columbine  murmured 
a  moment  later,  her  voice  changed  and  soft 
ened  so  that  he  had  to  bend  to  catch  her 
words,  "  I  am  glad  of  all  that  has  happened ; 
glad  of  you ;  glad,  always  glad." 

He  caught  her  passionately  in  his  arms 
and  covered  her  downcast  head  with  kisses, 
while  she  yielded  unresistingly  to  his  em 
brace,  although  she  sobbed  as  if  her  heart 
would  break.  In  the  east  the  promise  of  the 
dawn  shone  steadily,  increasing  slowly  but 
surely.  It  became  at  last  so  strong  that 
Columbine,  opening  her  swollen  lids,  was 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  51 

able  to  distinguish  objects  a  little.  At  that 
moment  she  became  conscious  that  the  arms 
of  her  lover  had  loosened  their  hold  upon 
her.  She  looked  into  his  face  with  sudden 
alarm.  Mr.  Tom  had  fallen  into  a  dead  faint. 


VII. 

THE  afternoon  sun  was  shining  into  Tom's 
chamber  windows  when  he  awoke.  Ten  hours 
of  heavy  sleep  had  had  a  wonderfully  revig- 
orating  effect  upon  him,  and  despite  some 
stiffness  he  awoke  with  a  sense  of  renewed 
power.  His  repose  had,  too,  a  far  more  re 
markable  effect  than  this.  Before  his  eyes 
were  open  he  said  aloud,  as  if  he  \vere  sol 
emnly  summoning  some  culprit  before  the 
bar  of  an  awful  tribunal :  — 

"  Thomas  Wainwright!  " 

The  sound  of  his  own  words  acted  upon 
him  like  an  electric  shock.  He  started  up 
in  bed,  wide  awake,  his  eyes  shining,  his 
whole  manner  alert,  joyous,  and  confident. 
He  was  nameless  no  longer.  Treacherous 
memory  had  yielded  up  its  tenaciously  kept 
secret,  and  at  last  he  emerged  from  the  shad 
owy  company  of  the  nameless  to  be  again  a 
man  among  men. 


52  A   BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

He  sprang  from  his  couch  and  made  his 
toilet  with  impatient  eagerness.  As  he 
dressed  he  remembered  everything  in  an  in 
stant.  That  baffling  mystery  of  his  family 
name  seemed  the  key  to  all  the  secrets  of 
his  past,  and,  having  yielded  up  this  prime- 
fact,  his  memory  made  no  further  resistance. 
His  whole  life  lay  before  him,  no  longer  la 
boriously  traced  out,  bit  by  bit,  but  unrolled 
as  a  map,  visible  at  a  single  coup  d'&il. 

Little  that  he  recalled  was  of  a  nature  to 
change  the  conclusions  he  had  formed  of  his 
circumstances,  except  the  single  fact  that  his 
wife  had  not  outlived  her  honeymoon.  The 
shock  of  her  father's  death,  and,  perhaps, 
some  seeds  of  malaria  contracted  in  India, 
had  proved  too  much  for  her  delicate  consti 
tution,  and  Tom,  eagerly  reviewing  his  newly 
recovered  past,  felt  a  pang  of  unselfish  sor 
row  for  the  unloved  bride  who  had  for  so 
short  a  time  borne  his  name,  that  name  which 
he  now  kept  saying  over  to  himself,  as  if  he 
feared  he  might  again  forget  it. 

He  hurried  downstairs,  and  in  the  old- 
fashioned  hall,  stately  with  its  wainscoting 
and  antique  carved  furniture,  he  met  Colum 
bine  coming  towards  him.  Like  his,  her  eyes 
shone  with  a  new  light,  her  lips  were  parted 
with  excitement,  and  her  step  was  eager. 


A  STRANGE  IDYL.  53 

"  Good-morning,  Mr.  Wainwright,"  she 
fluted  in  a  voice  high  with  excitement  and 
joyousness.  "  I  heard  your  step,  and  could 
not  wait  for  you  to  get  to  the  parlor." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cried  he,  stopping  short 
in  amazement.  "  How  die!  you  know?  Are 
you  a  witch?  " 

"  No,"  she  laughed,  pleasure  and  excite 
ment  mingling  rather  dangerously  in  her 
mood.  "Nothing  of  the  sort,  I  assure  you; 
though  one  of  my  ancestors  was  tried  for 
witchcraft  at  Salem.  Cousin  Tom  sent  me 
this  advertisement,  and  I  knew  at  once  that 
it  must  be  you." 

The  advertisement  she  showed  him  was  cut 
from  a  New  York  paper,  and  called,  with  a 
detailed  description  of  the  personal  appear 
ance  of  the  missing  man,  for  tidings  of  one 
Thomas  Wainwright,  of  Baltimore,  supposed 
to  have  perished  in  the  wreck  of  the  Sound 
steamer,  and  whose  large  estate  was  un 
settled.  Tom  read  it  over  with  mingled 
feelings. 

"  Bah  !  "  he  said.  "  When  I  get  home  I 
shall  only  have  to  look  over  a  file  of  the 
daily  papers  to  read  my  obituary.  Fortu 
nately  I  have  been  back  from  India  so  few 
years  that  they  cannot  say  a  great  deal  about 
me." 


54  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

" De  mortnis"  returned  Columbine,  smil 
ing.  "  They  will  only  say  good  of  you.  I 
congratulate  you  on  having  found  your 
name." 

"  I  had  it  before  you  told  me,"  he  said. 

He  took  her  hands  in  his  and  looked  at 
her  tenderly. 

"  I  have  all  my  past,  too,"  he  went  on.  "  I 
am  free ;  I  have  nothing  to  hide ;  nothing 
stands  between  us.  Will  you  be  my  wife, 
Columbine?  " 

She  grew  pale  as  ashes ;  then  flushed  celes 
tial  red  ;  but  her  eyes  did  not  flinch. 

"  I  trust  you  utterly,"  she  answered  him. 
"  And  I  love  you  no  less." 


AN   EPISODE   IN    MASK. 


AN    EPISODE   IN   MASK. 

\_Scene:  —  A  balcony  opening  by  a  wide,  curtained 
window  from  a  ball-room  in  which  a  masquerade  is 
in  progress.  Two  maskers,  the  lady  dressed  as  a 
peasant  girl  of  Britany  and  her  companion  as  a 
brigand,  come  out.  The  curtains  fall  behind  tJiem 
so  that  they  are  hidden  from  those  within.~\ 

He.    You  waltz  divinely,  mademoiselle. 

She.  Thank  you.  So  I  have  been  told  before, 
but  I  find  that  it  depends  entirely  upon  my 
partner. 

He.    You  flatter  me.     Will  you  sit  down? 

She.  Thank  you.  How  glad  one  is  when  a  ball 
is  over.  It  is  almost  worth  enduring  it  all,  just  to 
experience  the  relief  of  getting  through  with  it. 

He.  What  a  world-weary  sentiment  for  one  so 
young  and  doubtless  so  fair. 

She.  Oh,  everybody  is  young  in  a  mask,  and  by 
benefit  of  the  same  doubt,  I  suppose,  everybody  is 
fair  as  well. 

He.  It  were  easy  in  the  present  case  to  settle 
all  doubts  by  dropping  the  mask. 

She.  No,  thank  you.  The  doubt  does  not 
trouble  me,  so  why  should  I  take  pain's  to  dispel 
it  ?  Say  I  am  five  hundred  ;  I  feel  it. 


58  A  BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

He.  What  indifference  ;  and  in  one  who  waltzes 
so  well,  too.  Will  you  not  give  me  another  turn? 

She.    Pardon  me.     I  am  tired. 

He.  And  you  can  resist  music  with  such  a  sound 
of  the  sea  in  it? 

She.    It  is  not  melancholy  enough  for  the  sea. 

He.    Is  the  sea  so  solemn  to  you,  then? 

She.  Inexpressibly.  It  is  just  that  —  solemn. 
It  is  too  sad  for  anger,  and  too  great  and  grave  for 
repining ;  it  is  as  awful  as  fate. 

He.    I  confess  it  never  struck  me  so. 

She.  It  did  not  me  always.  It  was  while  I  was 
in  Britany  —  where  I  got  this  peasant  dress;  isn't 
it  quaint  ?  —  that  I  learned  to  know  the  sea.  It 
judged  me  ;  it  reiterated  one  burden  over  and  over 
until  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  should  go  mad ;  yet 
at  the  same  time  its  calmness  gave  me  self-control. 
If  there  had  been  the  slightest  trace  of  anger  or 
relenting  in  its  accusations,  I  could  have  turned 
away  easily  enough,  and  shaken  its  influence  all 
off.  But  it  was  like  an  awful  tribunal  before  which 
I  had  to  stand  silent,  and  review  my  past  as  inter 
preted  by  inexorable  justice,  —  with  no  palliations, 
no  shams,  nothing  but  honest  truth.  But  why 
should  I  say  all  this  rigmarole  to  you?  You  must 
be  amused,  —  if  you  are  not  too  much  bored,  that  is. 

He.    On  the  contrary,  I  thank  you  very  much. 

She.    For  what? 

He.  First,  for  your  confidence  in  me  ;  and  sec 
ond,  for  telling  me  an  experience  so  like  my  own. 


AN  EPISODE  IN  MASK.  59 

It  was  not  the  sea,  but  circumstances  that  deliv 
ered  me  over  to  myself,  —  a  long,  slow  convales 
cence,  in  which  I,  too,  had  an  interview  with 
the  Nemesis  of  truth-,  and  found  a  carefully  built 
structure  of  shams  and  self-deception  go  down  as 
mist  before  the  sun.  The  most  frightful  being 
in  the  world  to  encounter  is  one's  estranged  better 
self. 

She.  That  is  true.  No  one  but  myself  could 
have  persuaded  me  that  it  was  I  who  was  to  blame. 
The  more  I  wras  argued  with,  the  more  I  believed 
myself  a  martyr,  and  my  husband  — 

He.    Your  husband  ? 

She.  I  have  betrayed  myself.  I  am  not  mad 
emoiselle,  but  madame. 

fie.    But  I  see  no  — 

She.  No  ring?  True;  I  returned  that  to  my 
husband  before  I  went  to  Britany. 

He.    And  in  Britany? 

She.  In  Britany  I  would  have  given  the  world 
to  have  it  back  again. 

He.  But  your  husband  ?  Did  he  accept  it  so 
easily  ? 

She.  What  else  can  a  man  do  when  his  wife 
casts  him  off? 

He.  Do?  Oh,  it  is  considered  proper  in  such 
cases,  I  believe,  for  him  to  make  a  violent  pretence 
of  not  accepting  his  freedom. 

She.  You  seem  to  be  sure  he  considered  it 
freedom  ! 


60  A   BOOK   a  NINE    TALES. 

He.  Pardon  me.  I  forgot  for  the  moment  that 
you  were  his  wife. 

She.    Compliments  do  not  please  me. 

He.    Then  you  are  not  a  woman. 

She.    Will  you  be  serious? 

He.    Why  should  I  be  —  at  a  ball? 

She.    Because  I  choose. 

He.    Oh,  good  and  sufficient  reason  ! 

She.  But  tell  me  soberly,  —  you  are  a  man,  — 
what  could  my  husband  have  done? 

He.  Do  you  mean  to  make  my  ideas  standards 
by  which  to  try  him  ? 

She.  Perhaps  yes ;  perhaps  no.  At  least  tell 
me  what  you  think. 

He.  A  man  need  not  accept  a  dismissal  too 
easily. 

She.    But  what  then? 

He.  He  might  have  followed ;  he  might  have 
argued.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that  you  alone  were 
to  blame.  WTas  there  nothing  in  which  he  might 
have  acknowledged  himself  wrong,  —  nothing  with 
which  he  should  reproach  himself? 

She.  How  can  I  tell  what  took  place  in  his 
heart?  I  only  know  my  own.  He  may  have  re 
pented  somewhat,  or  he  may  not.  As  for  follow 
ing —  You  do  not  know  my  husband.  He  is 
just,  just,  just.  It  was  his  one  fault,  I  thought  then. 
It  took  time  for  me  to  appreciate  the  worth  of 
such  a  virtue. 

He.    But  what  has  that  to  do  with  following  yo^  ? 


AN  EPISODE  IN  MASK.  6 1 

She.  '  She  has  chosen,'  he  would  reason.  '  Let 
the  event  punish  her ;  it  is  only  right  that  she 
should  suffer  for  her  own  act.' 

He.    But  is  his  justice  never  tempered  by  mercy? 

She.  The  highest  mercy  is  to  be  just.  To  pal 
liate  is  merely  to  postpone  sentence. 

He.  You  are  the  first  woman  I  ever  met  who 
would  acknowledge  that. 

She.  Few  women,  I  hope,  have  been  taught  by 
an  experience  so  hard  as  mine.  But  how  dolefully 
we  are  talking.  Do  say  something  amusing ;  we 
are  at  a  ball. 

He.  I  might  give  you  an  epigram  for  the  one 
with  which  you  served  me  a  moment  ago,  and 
retort  that  to  be  amusing  is  to  be  insincere. 

She.  Then  —  for  we  came  to  be  amused  —  why 
are  we  here  ? 

He.    Manifestly  because  we  prize  insincerity. 

She.  You  are  right.  I  came  to  get  away  from 
myself.  One  must  do  something,  and  even  the 
dissipations  of  charity  pall  after  a  time. 

He.  We  seem  to  be  in  much  the  same  frame 
of  mind,  and  perhaps  cannot  do  better  than  to  stay 
where  we  are,  consorting  darkly,  while  the  others 
take  pains  to  amuse  themselves.  So  we  get  through 
the  evening,  that  is  the  main  thing. 

She.  You  have  forgotten  to  be  as  complimentary 
as  you  were  half  an  hour  since. 

He.  Have  I  ?  And  yet  the  greatest  compliment 
a  man  can  pay  a  woman  is  sincerity. 


62  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

She.    If  he  does  not  love  her,  yes. 

He.    Ah,  then  you  agree  with  Tom  Moore  : 

"  While  he  lies,  his  heart  is  yours  ; 
But  oh !  you  've  wholly  lost  the  youth, 
The  instant  that  he  tells  you  truth  !  " 

She.  Perhaps  ;  but  it  is  no  matter,  since  we  were 
not  talking  of  love. 

He.    But  if  we  were? 

She.  If  we  were  we  should  undoubtedly  say  a 
great  many  foolish  things  and  quite  as  many  false 
ones. 

He.    You  are  cynical. 

She.  Oh,  no.  Cynicism  is  like  a  cravat,  very 
becoming  to  a  man  if  properly  worn,  but  always 
setting  ill  upon  a  lady. 

He.  Did  you  learn  that,  also,  in  Britany?  It  is 
a  country  of  enlightenment.  Would  that  my  wife 
had  gone  there. 

She.    Or  her  husband  ! 

He.  You  are  keen.  Her  husband  learned  bitter 
truths  enough  by  staying  at  home.  I  am  evidently 
your  complement ;  for  I  had  a  wedding-ring  sent 
back  to  me. 

She.    And  why? 

He.  Why?  Why?  Who  ever  knows  a  woman's 
reason  !  Because  I  refused,  perhaps,  to  call  black 
white,  to  say  I  was  pleased  by  what  made  me 
angry;  because —  No;  on  the  whole,  since  I  am 
not  making  love  to  her,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to 
lie  to  a  peasant  from  Britany,  though  it  is  of  course 


AN  EPISODE  IN  MASK.  63 

necessary  to  sustain  the  social  fictions  with  people 
nearer  home.  It  was  because  the  wedding-ring 
was  a  fetter  that  constrained  ray  wife,  body  and 
soul ;  because  I  was  as  inflexible  as  steel.  My 
purposes,  my  views,  my  beliefs  were  the  Procrustean 
bed  upon  which  every  act  of  hers  was  measured. 
Voila  tout! 

She.    I  understand,  I  think. 

He.  Oh,  I  have  learned  well  enough  where  the 
blame  lay  in  the  three  years  since  she  left  me. 

She.    Three  years  ! 

He.    Why  do  you  start  ? 

She.    It  is  three  years,  too,  since  I  — 

He.    Who  are  you? 

She.  It  is  no  matter ;  my  husband  is  far  from 
here. 

He.    That  is  more  than  I  can  say  of  my  wife. 

She.    Where  is  she,  then? 

He.  Heaven  knows  ;  not  I.  But  let  that  go. 
Why  may  we  not  be  useful  to  each  other?  Our 
cases  are  similar ;  we  are  both  lonely. 

She.    And  strangers. 

He.  Acquaintance  is  not  a  matter  of  time,  but 
of  temperament.  Should  we  have  found  it  possible 
to  be  so  frank  with  one  another  had  we  been 
merely  strangers? 

She.    You  are  specious. 

He.    No  ;  only  honest. 

She.    But  what  — 

He.   What?     Why,  friendship.     We  have  found 


64  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

it  possible  to  be  frank  in  masks ;  why  not  out  of 
them  ? 

She.    Then  you  propose  a  platonic  friendship? 

He.  I  want  a  woman  who  will  be  my  friend, 
to  whom  I  can  talk  freely.  There  are  words  a 
man  has  no  power  or  wish  to  say  to  a  man, 
yet  which  must  be  spoken  or  they  fester  in  his 
mind. 

She.    I  am,  then,  to  be  a  safety-valve. 

He.  Every  man  must  have  a  woman  as  a  lode 
star  ;  you  are  to  be  that  to  me. 

She.    And  your  wife  ? 

He.  My  wife?  She  voluntarily  abandoned  me. 
I  have  n't  seen  her  for  three  years ;  and  surely  she 
ought  to  cease  to  count  by  this  time. 

She.   You  are  heartless. 

He.    Heartless? 

She.  You  should  be  faithful  to  your  lost  — 

He.    Lost  fiddlestick  ! 

She.   You  are  very  rude  ! 

He.    I  don't  see  — 

She.    And  very  disagreeable. 

He.    But  — 

She.  If  you  had  really  loved  your  wife,  you  'd 
always  mourn  for  her,  whatever  she  did. 

He.  Good  Heavens  !  That  is  like  a  woman. 
A  man  is  expected  to  bear  anything,  everything, 
and  if  at  last  he  does  not  come  weeping  to  kiss  the 
hand  that  smites  him,  he  is  heartless,  forsooth  ! 
Bah  !  I  am  not  a  whipped  puppy,  thank  you. 


AN  EPISODE  IN  MASK.  65 

She.  Your  love  was,  perhaps,  never  distinguished 
by  meekness  ? 

He.    I  'm  afraid  not. 

She.  It  might  be  none  the  worst  for  that.  The 
ideal  man  for  whom  I  am  looking  will  not  be  too 
lamblike,  even  in  love. 

He.    You  look  for  an  ideal  man,  then? 

She.    As  closely  as  did  Diogenes. 

He.    And  your  husband  ? 

She.  Oh,  like  your  wife,  he  should,  perhaps, 
begin  not  to  count. 

He.  Good.  We  are  sworn  friends,  then,  until  you 
find  your  ideal  man. 

She.    If  you  will. 

He.    Then  unmask. 

She.    Is  that  in  the  bargain? 

He.  Of  course.  Else  how  should  we  know  each 
other  again  ? 

She.    But- 

He.    Unmask  ! 

She.    Very  well,  —  when  you  do. 

He.    Now,  then.     [They  unmask.~\ 

She.    Philip  ! 

He.    Agnes  ! 

She.    You  knew  all  the  time  ! 

He.    Who  told  you  I  was  here? 

She.    I  did  n't  know  it. 

He.    I  thought  you  went  to  Russia. 

She.  Well,  I  did  n't.  I  hope  you  feel  better  ! 
Good  night. 

5 


66  A  BOOK  O  NINE    TALES. 

He.    Wait,  Agnes.     I  — 

\There  is  a  momenfs  silence,  in  which  they  look 
at  each  other  intently.  He  takes  her  hand  in  both 
his.'} 

He.    Agnes,  I  am  not  your  ideal  man,  but  — 

She.  Nor  I  your  ideal  woman,  apparently.  Your 
wife  does  not  count,  you  say. 

He.  No  more  than  your  husband ;  so  we  are 
quits  there. 

She.  It 's  very  horrid  of  you  to  remind  me  of 
that. 

He.  I  acknowledge  that  I  was  always  very  honid 
in  everything. 

She.  Oh,  if  you  acknowledge  that,  Phil,  it  is 
hardly  worth  while  to  spend  any  more  time  in  ex 
planations  while  this  divine  waltz  is  running  to 
waste. 

He.    But  you  were  tired  and  out  of  sorts. 

She.  You  old  goose,  don't  you  see  that  I  'm 
neither  ! 

He.    And  you  do  waltz  divinely. 

[  They  attempt  to  adjust  their  masks,  but  somehow 
get  into  each  other's  arms.  In  a  few  moments  more, 
iiowever,  they  are  seen  among  the  dancers  •within.'} 


tfje 


THE  TUBEROSE. 


THE   TUBEROSE. 


I. 

SHALL  feel  honored,  Mistress 
Henshaw,  if  you  will  accept  this 
posie  as  a  token  which  may  per 
chance  serve  to  keep  me  in  re 
membrance  while  I  am  over  the  sea." 

"  I  am  extremely  beholden  to  you,"  replied 
the  old  dame  addressed,  her  wrinkled  face 
illuminated  with  a  smile  of  pleasure.  "  But 
for  keeping  you  in  remembrance  it  needs  not 
this  posie  or  other  token.  I  do  not  hold  my 
friends  so  lightly." 

"  I  thank  you  for  counting  me  one  of  your 
friends,"  John  Friendleton  said  frankly.  "  I 
have  no  kindlier  memories  of  Boston  than 
of  the  home  under  your  roof." 

He  had  placed  upon  the  many-legged 
table  a  flower-pot  containing  a  thrifty  tube 
rose,  and  with  a  kindly  smile  upon  his  hand 
some  and  winning  face,  he  stood  regarding 
the  old  dame  into  whose  custody  he  had  just 
given  the  plant.  The  dress  of  the  period,  — 
the  days  of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 


70  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

tury,  — plain  though  it  was,  accorded  well 
with  the  sturdy  honesty  and  kindness  of  his 
face  and  the  compact  and  strong  build  of 
his  figure.  The  wrinkled  crone  returned 
his  smile  with  one  of  frosty  but  genuine 
warmth. 

"This  plant  is  none  the  less  pleasing  to 
me,"  she  said,  "though  I  by  no  means  need 
it  as  a  reminder.  I  shall  be  very  careful  in 
its  nourishing." 

"  It  is  by  no  means  an  ordinary  herb," 
Friendleton  returned  lightly.  "  There  may 
be  magic  in  it  for  aught  I  can  tell.  My 
uncle,  who  sent  me  the  bulbs  from  even  so 
far  away  as  Spain,  hath  a  shrewd  name  as 
a  wise  man ;  and  to  say  sooth  he  belike  doth 
know  far  more  than  altogether  becometh  a 
good  Christian.  I  give  you  fair  warning  that 
there  may  be  mischief  in  the  herb ;  though 
to  be  sure,"  he  added  laughing,  "the  earth 
in  which  it  grows  is  consecrated,  for  I  rilled 
the  pot  from  Copp's  Hill  graveyard  hard  by 
here." 

A  momentary  gleam  shot  with  a  sinister 
light  its  fiery  sparkle  across  the  black  eyes  of 
Mistress  Hcnshaw. 

"  To  one  who  feareth  no  harm,"  she  an 
swered,  "  it  seldom  haps.  I  trust  the  wind 
may  hold  fair  for  your  sailing,"  she  added, 


THE    TUBEROSE.  71 

glancing  from  the  small-paned  window,  "  and 
that  you  may  safely  return  to  Boston  as  you 
are  minded." 

"  Thank  you,  I  have  hitherto  been  much 
favored  by  Providence  in  my  journeyings. 
Farewell,  Mistress  Henshaw." 

The  old  dame  received  his  adieu,  and  a 
moment  later  she  watched  from  the  window 
his  active  young  figure  as  he  walked  briskly 
away.  She  regarded  it  intently  until  a  cor 
ner  hid  him  from  sight.  Then  she  turned 
back  to  her  room  and  her  occupations. 

"  Providence,  indeed  !  "  she  muttered  half 
aloud,  with  a  world  of  contempt  in  her  tone. 

Then  she  turned  to  the  thrifty,  healthy 
tuberose  and  caressed  its  leaves  with  her 
thin  old  fingers  as  if  it  were  alive  and  could 
understand  her  attentions. 

The  house  in  which  this  conversation  took 
place  was  still  standing  a  few  years  since,  the 
oldest  in  Boston,  at  the  corner  of  Moon  and 
Sun  Court  streets.  It  was  erected  in  1669; 
its  timber,  tradition  says,  being  cut  in  the 
neighborhood.  The  upper  story  projected 
over  the  lower  like  a  frowning  brow,  from 
beneath  which  the  windows  shone  at  night 
like  the  glowing  eye-balls  of  a  wild  beast. 
It  was  a  stout  and  almost  warlike-looking 
edifice,  which  preserved  even  up  to  the 


72  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

day  when,  in  1878,  it  was  at  length  pulled 
down  by  the  hand  of  progress,  a  certain 
strongly  individual  appearance,  which  if  less 
marked  at  the  time  when  John  Friendleton 
bade  Mistress  Henshaw  good-by,  and  the 
building  was  thirty  years  old,  must  always 
have  distinguished  the  dwelling  from  those 

O  O 

about  it. 

Dwellings,  however,  take  much  of  their  air 
from  dwellers,  and  Mistress  Henshaw  was 
likely  to  impart  to  any  house  she  inhabited 
a  bearing  unlike  that  of  its  neighbors.  She 
was  a  dame  to  all  appearances  of  some  three 
score  winters,  each  frosty  season  having  left 
its  snow  upon  her  hair.  Her  figure  was  still 
erect,  while  her  eyes  were  piercing  and  black 
and  capable  of  a  glance  of  such  strength  and 
directness  as  almost  to  seem  supernatural. 

It  may  have  been  from  the  power  and  fer 
vor  of  this  glance  that  Mistress  Henshaw 
acquired  the  uncanny  reputation  which  she 
enjoyed  in  Boston.  As  she  moved  with  sur 
prising  energy  about  the  house,  overseeing 
and  directing  her  dumb  negro  servant  Dinah, 
the  eyes  of  passers-by  who  saw  her  erect 
figure  flit  by  the  windows  were  half  averted 
as  if  from  some  deadly  thing  which  yet  held 
them  with  a  weird  fascination  ;  and  at  night 
fall  the  children  whom  chance  belated  in  the 


THE    TUBEROSE.  73 

neighborhood  went  skurrying  past  Dame 
Henshaw's  house  like  frightened  hares. 

It  is  not  perhaps  to  be  told  why  Satan 
should  have  been  able  to  establish  his  king 
dom  among  a  people  so  devout  and  pious  as 
the  godly  inhabitants  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony;  yet  we  have  it  upon  the  testimony 
of  no  less  a  man  than  the  sage  and  reverend 
Cotton  Mather,  whose  sepulchre  is  with  us 
unto  this  day,  and  upon  the  word  of  many 
another  scarcely  less  wise  and  devout,  that 
the  Father  of  Evil  did  establish  a  peculiar 
and  covenant  people  of  his  own  in  the  midst 
of  the  very  elect  of  New  England.  It  may 
be  that  it  is  always  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Job,  and  that  the  sons  of  God  never  assemble 
without  finding  in  their  midst  the  dark  form 
of  Lucifer  ;  for  certain  it  is  that  the  devil,  to 
quote  the  Rev.  Cotton  Mather's  own  words, 
•'  broke  in  upon  the  country  after  as  aston 
ishing  a  manner  as  was  ever  heard  of." 

"  Flashy  people,"  quaintly  and  solemnly 
remarks  the  learned  divine,  "  may  burlesque 
these  things,  but  when  hundreds  of  the  most 
sober  people  in  a  country  where  they  have 
as  much  motJicr-tvit  certainly  as  the  rest  of 
mankind,  know  them  to  be  true,  nothing  but 
the  absurd  and  forward  spirit  of  Saddncisin 
can  question  them."  From  all  of  which, 


74  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

and  from  much  more  which  might  be  cited,  it 
is  evident  that  there  was  plenty  of  witchcraft 
abroad  in  those  days,  whether  Mistress  Hcn- 
shaw  was  concerned  therein  or  not. 

It  is  sufficient  to  note  that  certain  gossips 
scrupled  not  to  declare  that  Dame  Henshaw 
was  one  of  the  accursed  who  bore  the  mark 
of  the  beast  and  kept  tryst  at  the  orgies 
of  the  witches'  sabbath,  and  the  report  once 
started  the  facts  in  the  case  made  little  dif 
ference.  Some  of  her  neighbors  went  so  far 
as  to  declare  that  if  the  dame's  residence 
were  forcibly  changed  from  Sun  Court  street 
to  Prison  lane,  the  community  would  be  the 
better  off. 

Governor  Belamont,  however,  in  this  last 
year  of  the  century,  was  far  more  exercised 
about  pirates  than  concerning  witches ;  and 
better  pleased  at  the  capture  of  Captain  Kidd, 
who  had  just  fallen  into  his  hands,  than  if  he 
had  discovered  all  the  wise  women  in  the 
colonies.  Public  feeling,  moreover,  was  still 
in  a  reactionary  state  from  the  horrors  of  the 
Salem  delusion  of  1692;  and  thus  it  came 
about  that  Mistress  Henshaw  was  left  un 
molested. 

The  second  person  in  the  dialogue  given 
above,  John  Friendleton,  was  an  Englishman, 
and,  if  tradition  be  true,  the  son  of  an  old 


THE   TUBEROSE.  75 

lover  of  Mistress  Henshaw.  He  had  taken 
up  his  abode  with  that  lady  upon  his  arrival 
in  the  New  World,  whither  he  had  been  led, 
like  many  another  stout  young  blade  of  his 
clay,  by  the  hope  of  finding  fair  fortunes  in 
the  growing  colonies,  and  from  the  first  he 
had  been  a  favorite  with  the  old  lady.  It 
was  whispered  over  certain  of  those  tea-cups 
which  we  now  tenderly  cherish  from  a  re 
spect  for  the  memory  of  very  great  grand 
mothers  and  an  aesthetic  enjoyment  of  the 
beauties  of  old  china,  that  it  was  by  the  aid 
of  unhallowed  power  exercised  in  his  behalf 
that  the  young  man  was  always  so  fortunate 
in  his  undertakings.  There  were  sinister  tales 
of  singular  coincidences  which  had  worked 
for  his  good,  and  behind  which  the  gossips 
believed  to  lie  the  instigating  will  of  his 
powerful  landlady.  Whether  he  himself  was 
aware  of  this  supernatural  aid,  opinion  was 
divided,  but  he  was  so  frank  and  handsome 
withal  that  the  weight  of  opinion  leaned 
toward  acquitting  him.  The  habit  of  New 
England  thought,  moreover,  was  so  opposed 
to  imagining  a  witch  as  exercising  her  power 
for  anything  but  evil,  that  these  rumors  after 
all  gained  no  great  or  general  credence. 

The  friendship  between  the  dame  and  her 
lodger  was  perhaps  based  upon  mutual  need. 


76  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

The  young  man  gave  her  that  full  confidence 
which  a  pure-minded  youth  enjoys  bestowing 
upon  an  elderly  female  friend ;  while  in  turn 
the  childless  old  lady,  alone  and  otherwise 
friendless,  regarded  him  with  tender  affec 
tion.  She  cherished  any  chance  token  from 
him,  and  especially  did  she  seem  touched  by 
this  gift  of  a  tuberose  which  he  had  given  her 
at  parting.  She  knew  how  carefully  he  had 
tended  and  cherished  the  plant,  more  rare 
then  than  now,  and  long  after  the  sails  of  the 
ship  which  conveyed  him  to  England,  whither 
he  had  been  summoned  by  the  serious  illness 
of  a  relative,  had  dipped  under  the  horizon, 
the  old  witch  —  if  witch  she  were  —  sat  re 
garding  the  flower  with  eyes  in  which  the 
tears  glistened. 


II. 


IT  was  early  springtime  when  John  Friend- 
leton  once  more  caught  sight  of  the  beacon 
upon  Trimountain,  and  the  walls  of  the  fort 
standing  upon  a  hill  which  has  itself  been  re 
moved  by  the  enterprise  of  Boston.  The  few 
months  of  the  young  man's  absence,  and  the 
progress  of  time  from  one  century  to  another 
—  for  it  was  now  1700  —  had  brought  no 


THE    TUBEROSE.  77 

great  changes  to  the  town ;  but  to  him  it 
seemed  far  from  being  the  same  he  had  left. 

The  first  tidings  he  had  received  from  Bos 
ton,  after  landing  in  England,  had  been  a 
letter  telling  of  the  death  of  Mistress  Hen- 
shaw.  She  had  set  out  from  Boston,  so 
the  letter  informed  him,  to  visit  a  sister  living 
somewhere  in  the  wilds  toward  far  Pemaquid, 
and  had  never  returned.  The  letter  was 
written  by  one  Rose  Dalton,  who  claimed 
to  be  a  niece  of  the  deceased,  and  who 
had  come  into  possession  of  the  small  prop 
erty  of  Mistress  Henshaw  by-  virtue  of  a 
will  made  before  the  adventurous  and  fatal 
journey.  The  writer  added  to  her  letter  the 
information  that  she  should  live  on  with 
dumb  Dinah,  holding  as  nearly  as  possible 
to  the  fashion  of  her  aunt's  housekeeping. 

When  John  stood  once  more  upon  the  well- 
remembered  threshold,  he  felt  half  disposed 
to  turn  away  and  enter  no  more  a  place  in 
which  every  familiar  sight  could  but  call  up 
sad  memories.  Then,  endeavoring  to  shake 
off  his  melancholy,  he  knocked. 

Alight,  brisk  step  approached  from  within, 
and  the  door  opened  quickly. 

John  stood  in  amazement,  unable  to  utter 
a  word,  so  bewildered  was  he  by  the  beauty 
of  the  maiden  who  stood  before  him ;  a 


78  A   BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

beauty  which  now,  after  nearly  two  centuries, 
is  still  a  tradition  of  marvel.  Something 
unreal  and  almost  supernatural  there  might 
seem  in  the  wonderful  loveliness  of  this  ex 
quisite  creature,  were  it  not  that  she  seemed 
so  to  overflow  with  life  and  vitality.  Her 
soft  and  dove  like  eyes  \vere  full  of  gleams 
of  human  energy,  of  joy,  of  passion;  she 
had  all  the  beauty  of  a  perfect  dream  with 
out  its  unreality;  and  then  and  there  the 
young  Englishman's  heart  fell  down  and 
worshipped  her,  never  after  to  swerve  from 
its  allegiance. 

"  You  must  be  Mr.  Friendleton,"  the 
maiden  said,  courtesying  bewitchingly.  "  I 
knew  your  ship  was  in." 

"I — I  have  been  minding  my  luggage," 
he  stammered,  rather  irrelevantly,  his  eyes 
fastened  upon  her  face. 

"  Be  pleased  to  enter,"  said  she,  smiling  a 
little  at  the  boldness  and  unconsciousness  of 
his  stare.  "  Your  room  has  been  preserved 
as  you  left  it  at  your  departure.  My  aunt, 
good  Mistress  Henshaw,  as  I  wrote  you, 
straitly  enjoined  in  her  will  that  everything 
should  be  kept  for  you  as  you  had  left  it. 
Her  affections  were  marvellously  set  upon 
you." 

That  he  should  be  allowed  to  enter  under 


THE    TUBEROSE.  79 

the  same  roof  with  this  beautiful  creature 
seemed  to  John  Friendleton  the  height  of 
bliss,  and  he  had  no  words  to  express  his 
delight  when  he  learned  that  Mistress  Rose 
expected  him  to  take  up  his  abode  there  as 
in  former  times.  Her  aunt  had  wished  it; 
had  especially  spoken  of  it  in  her  will,  and 
so  it  was  to  be. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  pretend  that 
Friendleton  struggled  much  against  this  pro 
position,  when  inclination  so  strongly  pleaded 
for  the  carrying  out  of  the  wishes  of  his 
dead  friend ;  and  in  this  way  he  became 
the  lodger  of  young  Mistress  Rose. 


III. 


IT  did  not  long  escape  the  eye  of  the 
young  man  that  his  new  landlady  wore 
always  at  her  throat  a  cluster  of  the  white, 
waxy  blossoms  of  the  tuberose.  The  cir 
cumstance  was  in  itself  sufficiently  curious 
and  unusual  to  excite  his  attention,  and  it 
recalled  to  his  mind  the  plant  he  had  given 
to  Mistress  Henshaw.  He  wondered  what 
had  been  the  fate  of  his  gift,  and  one  day  he 
ventured  to  ask  Mistress  Rose  about  it.  For 
reply  she  led  him  to  the  room  formerly  occu- 


80  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

pied  by  her  aunt,  and  showed  him  the  tube 
rose  in  a  quaint  pot.  It  had  grown  tall  and 
thrifty,  and  half  a  dozen  slim  stalks  upon  it 
stood  up  stoutly,  covered  with  buds,  which 
showed  here  and  there  touches  of  dull  red 
evolved  in  their  transformation  from  green  to 
white. 

"  I  marvel  how  it  hath  increased,"  John 
said. 

"It  hath  thriven  marvellously,"  she  replied. 
"  Never  before  hath  it  been  known  that  the 
plant  would  bloom  throughout  all  the  year, 
but  this  sends  out  buds  continually.  I  daily 
wear  a  blossom,  as  you  may  see,  and  I  find 
its  odor  wonderfully  cheering,  although  for 
most  it  is  too  powerfully  sweet." 

"  It  is  an  ornament  which  becometh  you 
exceedingly  well,"  he  responded,  flushing. 

"  My  neighbors,"  returned  she  smiling, 
"  regard  it  as  exceeding  frivolous." 

The  fragrance  of  the  flower  which  Mistress 
Rose  wore  at  her  throat  floated  about  John 
wherever  his  daily  occupations  led  him,  and 
doubly  did  the  delicious  perfume  steal  through 
his  dreams.  He  never  thought  of  the  maiden 
without  feeling  in  the  air  that  divinely  sweet 
odor;  and  a  thousand  times  he  secretly  com 
pared  her  to  the  flower  she  wore.  Nor  was 
the  comparison  inapt  ;  since  her  beauty  was 


THE   TUBEROSE.  8 1 

rendered  somewhat  unearthly  by  the  strange 
pallor  of  her  face,  while  the  intense  and 
passionate  intoxication  it  produced  might, 
without  great  straining  of  the  simile,  be  di 
rectly  compared  to  the  exaltation  which  the 
delicious  and  powerful  fragrance  produces 
in  sensuous  and  sensitive  natures. 

The  intimacy  between  the  young  people 
was  at  first  hindered  by  the  shyness  of 
Friendleton,  who  was  only  too  conscious  of 
the  fervor  and  depth  of  his  passion ;  but  as 
Rose  had  many  of  the  well-remembered  ways 
of  her  aunt,  and,  stranger  yet,  appeared  well 
versed  in  his  own  past  history,  he  soon 
became  more  at  his  ease.  In  defiance  of 
the  proverb  which  condemns  all  true  lovers 
to  uneven  ways  and  obstructed  paths,  the 
wooing  of  lovely  Mistress  Rose  by  John 
Friendleton  ran  smoothly  and  happily  on, 
seeming  to  have  begun  with  the  young  man's 
first  meeting  with  his  lovely  landlady.  The 
gossips  of  Boston  town,  strangely  enough, 
left  the  relations  of  the  lovers  untouched 
by  any  but  friendly  comment;  and  in  a  fash 
ion  as  natural  as  the  ripening  of  the  year, 
their  love  ripened  into  completeness. 

It  was  early  autumn  when  Rose  became 
Mistress  Friendleton.  The  wedding  was  qui 
etly  celebrated  in  the  old  North  Church, 
6 


82  A   BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

and  never  in  its  century  of  existence  before 
its  timbers  went  to  feed  the  campfires  of 
British  soldiers,  did  that  house  shelter  a 
more  lovely  bride  or  a  more  manly  and 
blissful  groom.  A  faint  flush  softened  the 
pallor  of  the  maiden,  the  one  charm  which 
could  add  to  her  beauty.  Her  only  orna 
ment  was  her  usual  cluster  of  tuberoses,  and 
more  than  one  spectator  noted  how  like  the 
flower  was  the  lady.  The  circumstance  was 
recalled  afterward  when  the  slab  was  placed 
above  her  grave  in  Copp's  Hill  burial-ground. 
There  still  lingers  among  certain  old  gossips 
of  tenacious  memory  the  tradition  of  a  stone 
which  had  on  it  "  some  sort  of  a  flower."  It 
was  the  slab  upon  which  John  Friendleton, 
imaginative  at  sorest  need,  had  caused  to  be 
carved  simply  a  bunch  of  tuberoses. 

If  John  had  been  happy  in  anticipation,  he 
was,  if  such  a  thing  be  possible,  no  less  so  in 
reality.  It  is  as  trite  to  attempt  as  it  is  im 
possible  to  effect  the  portraying  of  the  life 
of  two  young  people  who  are  profoundly 
happy  in  each  other.  Joy  may  be  named, 
but  not  painted.  Even  were  it  easy  to  pic 
ture  their  existence,  their  self-absorption 
would  prevent  their  being  interesting.  As 
I  have  sometimes  passed  the  old  house  on 
Moon  Street,  standing  worn  and  stained  with 


THE    TUBEROSE  83 

the  storms  of  two  centuries,  a  picture  has 
risen  before  me  of  the  young  bride  and 
groom  sitting  together  and  inhaling  the  fra 
grance  of  a  quaint  pot  of  tuberoses,  blooming 
so  wonderfully  that  the  whole  house  was 
filled  with  their  odor ;  and  the  memory 
brings  always  the  tears  to  my  eyes. 


IV. 

NOVEMBER  was  at  its  last  day.  A  severe 
storm,  half  rain,  half  snow,  was  sweeping  over 
Boston.  The  beacon  upon  Trimount  trem 
bled  in  the  blast,  and  on  the  shores  of  the 
peninsula  the  waves  roared  sullenly.  Few 
people  were  abroad,  and  there  was  never  a 
watchman  in  the  city  who  did  not  for  that 
day  at  least  regret  having  chosen  a  calling 
which  kept  him  out  of  doors  in  such  weather. 

The  house  on  Sun  Court  Street  was  too 
stoutly  built  to  tremble,  yet  those  within 
heard  the  wind  howling  over  the  hill  as  if 
scourged  by  all  the  furies.  It  was  one  of 
those  nights  when  a  man  sits  before  his  fire 
and  realizes  the  value  of  all  his  blessings. 

John  and  Rose  sat  together  before  the 
blazing  hearth  while  the  husband  told  sto 
ries  of  his  boyhood  in  England.  The  wife 


84  A   BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

nestled  close  to  him,  absorbed  in  the  narra 
tion,  yet  not  forgetting  to  fondle  his  hand 
with  her  smooth,  soft  fingers. 

Suddenly  into  the  room  burst  black,  dumb 
Dinah,  wringing  her  hands  and  moving  her 
speechless  lips  with  frightful  earnestness. 
In  her  hands  she  carried  the  fragments  of 
the  pot  which  had  held  the  tuberose. 

Rose  sprang  up  with  a  cry  of  anguish. 

"  Dinah  !   Dinah  !      My  tuberose  !  " 

The  negress  gesticulated  wildly,  but  her 
mistress  rushed  past  her;  and,  followed  by 
her  husband,  hastened  to  see  for  herself  the 
extent  of  the  mischief. 

The  pot  had  been  overturned  by  the  wind, 
which  had  burst  in  one  of  the  tiny  greenish 
window  panes,  and  the  plant  was  completely 
crushed  in  the  downfall.  Not  a  single  flower 
had  escaped,  and  mingled  with  fragments  of 
pottery  and  with  the  black  church-yard  mould 
in  which  the  flower  had — perhaps  ill-fatedly 
—  been  planted,  were  the  leaves  and  petals, 
torn  and  stained  and  mangled. 

In  the  first  sorrow  of  the  discovery  of  the 
accident,  Rose  threw  herself  into  her  hus 
band's  arms  and  burst  into  tears;  but  she 
soon  controlled  herself,  and  became  perfectly 
calm.  She  directed  Dinah  to  remove  the 
debris,  and  returned  to  listen  to  her  husband's 


THE    TUBEROSE.  85 

stories;  and,  although  she  was  more  quiet 
than  before,  she  seemed  no  less  interested. 

It  was  late  when  they  prepared  to  retire. 

"John,"  Rose  said,  hesitatingly,  as  they 
lingered  a  moment  side  by  side  before  the 
wide  hearth,  "  it  is  just  a  year  to-night  since 
Mistress  Henshaw  died.  If  you  are  willing, 
I  wish  to  pass  the  night  alone  in  her  room." 

"  I  am  always  willing  you  should  do  what 
ever  pleaseth  you  best,"  he  answered,  smiling 
upon  her;  "  but  why  do  you  mean  to  shut 
me  out  from  your  sorrow?  I,  too,  loved 
her." 

"  I  know,"  Rose  returned,  bending  to  kiss 
the  hand  he  had  laid  upon  hers,  "  and  I  fear 
you  can  never  be  shut  out  from  my  sorrows, 
however  much  I  could  wish  to  spare  you. 
Still,  I  wish  it  to  be  so  for  to-night." 

"  Then  let  it  be  so.  The  storm  does  not 
fright  you?  " 

"  The  storm  does  not  fright  me." 

She  took  from  her  throat  the  tuberoses  she 
had  worn  that  day,  and  gazed  at  them  sadly. 

"  I  can  never  wear  another,"  she  said. 
"These  are  faded  like  our  happy  days." 

"You  speak  but  sadly,"  returned  her  hus 
band,  with  a  look  of  such  fondness  that  the 
tears  started  into  her  eyes  despite  all  her 
efforts  to  restrain  them.  "  You  would  have 


86  A  BOOK   a  NINE    TALES. 

spoken  so  had  you  been  bidding  me  farewell. 
The  destruction  of  the  flower  makes  you 
downcast.  Mayhap  there  is  still  life  in  the 
root,  and  it  may  be  made  once  more  to  grow 
and  bloom." 

"John,"  his  wife  said  abruptly,  "John,  I 
have  loved  you  from  the  first  moment  I  saw 
you  ;  I  love  you  now,  and  I  shall  love  you  to 
all  eternity.  Whatever  happens,  remember 
that  and  believe  it." 

"  I  have  never  doubted  that  you  love  me," 
he  answered,  gathering  her  into  his  arms  ; 
"how  else  could  it  be  that  you  could  have 
made  me  so  utterly  happy?" 

She  clung  to  him  passionately  a  moment. 
Then  with  an  evident  effort  at  self-control, 
she  kissed  his  lips  fervently,  disengaged  her 
self  from  his  embrace,  and  turned  away. 

"  Good-night,  dear,"  she  said. 

Then  upon  the  threshold  of  Mistress  Hen- 
shaw's  chamber  she  paused  and  looked  back, 
tears  shining  in  her  beautiful  dark  eyes. 

"  Good-night,"  she  repeated  ;  "  good-night." 


V. 

IT  was   somewhat  past  his  usual   hour  of 

rising  when  John  Friendleton  next  morning 

came  downstairs.     The  storm  was  over,  but 


THE   TUBEROSE.  87 

everywhere  had  it  left  its  traces  in  broken 
boughs,  overturned  fences,  and  dilapidated 
chimneys,  so  that  as  he  looked  from  the  win 
dow,  John  could  see  on  all  sides  the  evi 
dences  of  its  violence. 

The  house  was  strangely  quiet,  and  he 
looked  about  him  with  the  impatience  of  a 
lover  for  his  wife,  that  she  might  chase  away 
the  unaccustomed  sombreness  which  seemed 
to  have  descended  upon  the  place. 

"  Dinah,"  he  asked,  "  has  not  your  mistress 
risen?  " 

The  mute  regarded  him  with  a  strange 
appearance  of  wildness  and  terror,  but  she 
replied  by  a  shake  of  the  head,  —  instantly 
hurrying  out  of  the  room  as  if  in  fear. 

John  looked  after  her  an  instant  in  bewil 
derment,  not  understanding  her  odd  manner  ; 
and  then  approaching  the  door  of  the  room 
occupied  by  his  wife,  he  tapped  softly. 

There  was  no  response. 

He  tapped  again  somewhat  more  loudly. 
Still  there  'was  no  reply.  A  third  time  he 
rapped,  now  with  a  heavy  hand.  All  within 
was  as  silent  as  the  grave. 

Startled  by  he  knew  not  what  fear, .with  a 
sudden  impulse  he  set  his  strong  shoulder  to 
the  door,  and  strained  until  with  a  crash  it 
flew  open. 


88  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

The  heavy  curtains  were  undrawn,  and  a 
grey  gloom  filled  the  chamber.  A  fearful 
silence  followed  the  crash  of  the  breaking 
lock,  and  met  him  like  a  palpable  terror. 
He  saw  Rose  lying  on  the  bed,  her  face  buried 
in  the  pillows ;  and  by  some  fantastic  jug 
glery,  the  light  from  the  open  door,  as  it  fell 
upon  her  hair,  —  those  abundant  tresses 
whose  rich,  dark  glory  he  so  loved,  —  seemed 
to  silver  them  to  the  whiteness  of  hoary  age. 

"  Rose !  "  he  cried,  starting  forward  to 
seize  her  hand  which  lay  upon  the  coverlid. 

The  hand  was  cold  with  a  chill  which 
smote  him  to  the  very  heart. 

"  Rose  !  Sweetheart !  "  he  cried  in  a  pierc 
ing  voice,  bending  over  and  tenderly  turning 
her  dear  face  up  to  the  light. 

What  horrible  mockery  confronted  him? 
He  started  back  like  one  stung  by  a  serpent! 

Along  the  pillow  lay  a  crushed  and  with 
ered  tuberose,  and  he  looked  upon  the  face, 
ghastly  in  death,  and  old  and  haggard  and 
wrinkled —  of  Mistress  Henshaw. 


AN   EVENING   AT  WHIST. 


AN    EVENING  AT  WHIST. 

[  The  scene  is  the  parlor  of  a  modern  house,  much 
adorned,  and  furnished  with  a  'wealth  of  bric-a-brac, 
which  renders  getting  about  a  most  difficult  and  deli 
cate  operation,  unless  one  is  wholly  regardless  of  the 
consequences  to  the  innumerable  ornaments.  Mrs. 
Greeleigh  Vaughn,  a  corpulent  and  well-preserved 
widow,  who  passes  for  forty,  and  is  not  less,  has  just 
seated  herself  at  the  whist-table,  with  her  daughter 
and  two  guests.  One  of  these,  Air.  Amptill  Talbot,  is 
one  of  those  young  men  whose  wits  seem  to  be  in  some 
mysterious  fashion  closely  connected  with  the  farting 
of  their  hair  exactly  in  the  middle ;  the  other  is  a 
handsome  and  keen-eyed  gentleman  of  middle  age,  who 
answers  to  the  name  Colonel  Graha>n.~\ 

Mrs.  Vaughn.  I  am  so  glad  you  could  and 
would  come,  Colonel  Graham.  Now  we  shall 
have  a  delightful  evening  at  whist.  You  are  such 
a  superb  player  that  I  am  sure  I  shall  learn  more 
about  the  game  by  playing  with  you  a  single  eve 
ning  than  I  should  by  studying  the  books  for  a  year. 

Colonel  Graham.  You  are  too  good.  I  make 
not  the  slightest  pretence  of — 

Mrs.  V.  Oh,  of  course  not.  You  are  too  mod 
est  ;  but  everybody  says  that  you  are  a  wonderful 
player.  I  only  hope  you  won't  be  too  hard  on  me 
if  I  make  a  mistake. 


92  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

Miss  Vaughn.  Oh,  I  am  so  glad  mamma  is 
your  partner,  Colonel  Graham.  I  should  be  fright 
ened  to  death  if  I  had  to  play  with  you.  Mr. 
Talbot  will  be  a  good  deal  more  merciful,  I  am 
sure. 

Mr.  Talbot.  Anything  you  do  is  sure  to  be 
right,  Miss  Vaughn.  If  you  can  put  up  with  me, 
I  am  sure  I  can  afford  to  overlook  any  mistakes 
you  make.  I  play  whist  so  seldom  that  I  am  all 
out  of  practice. 

Miss  V.  (dealing').  Oh,  I  just  never  play,  only 
when  I  have  to  make  up  the  table.  I  have  so 
many  things  on  hand.  Why  were  n't  you  at  the 
Wentworths'  last  night,  Mr.  Talbot? 

Mr.  T.  I  was  out  of  town.  I  think  you  gave 
yourself  two  cards  that  time. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  dear  !  Have  I  made  a  misdeal? 
I  wish  you  'd  count  your  cards. 

Colonel  G.  You  are  right.  The  next  card  is 
mine. 

Miss  V.    Thank  you. 

Mrs.  V.    That  came  out  all  right. 

Colonel  G.    But  the  trump  is  not  turned. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  which  was  the  last  card?  I  am 
sure  I  don't  know ;  I  Ve  got  them  all  mixed  up 
now. 

Mrs.  V.  Well,  never  mind.  Let  me  draw  one. 
That  will  do  just  as  well. 

Mr.  T.  Diamonds  ?  Can't  you  draw  again  ?  I 
have  n't  — 


AN  EVENING  AT   WHIST.  93 

Miss  V.  I  don't  think  it  was  diamonds.  I  am 
almost  sure  it  was  spades. 

Mrs.  V.  No,  diamonds  suits  me,  and  of  course 
you  can't  change  it  now  ;  can  she,  Colonel  Graham  ? 

Colonel  G.  It  isn't  customary,  I  believe,  unless 
we  are  to  play  Auction  Pitch,  and  bid  for  the  trump. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  now  you  are  going  to  be  sarcastic  ! 
I  don't  think  that 's  fair. 

Mrs.  V.  Do  you  put  your  trumps  at  one  end  of 
your  hand,  Colonel  Graham  ? 

Colonel  G.  No,  I  do  not,  but  some  people  find 
it  a  convenience. 

Mr.  T.    Is  it  my  lead? 

Colonel  G.    No,  it  is  my  partner's. 

Mrs.  V.  Oh,  is  it  my  lead ?  I'm  sure  I  don't 
know  what  to  play.  You  always  lead  from  your 
long  suit,  don't  you?  There,  I  hope  that  queen 
will  be  good. 

Mr.  T.    No,  it  won't,  for  I  have  the  ace. 

Mrs.  V.  Oh,  you  mean  man  !  Partner,  can't 
you  trump  that? 

Colonel  G.    I  have  suit. 

Miss  V.  There,  I  have  got  to  put  the  king  on, 
and  I  think  it  is  mean. 

Mr.  T.    I  am  awfully  sorry.   If  I  'd  only  known  — 

Miss  V.  I  shook  my  head  at  you,  but  you 
would  n't  look  up. 

Mrs.  V.  That  wasn't  fair,  and  you  deserve  to 
be  beaten.  Now  my  jack  is  good,  any  way. 

Mr.  T.    It  is  n't  your  lead.     I  took  the  trick. 


94  ^  BOOK  O   NINE   TALES. 

Mrs.  V.    Oh,  I  beg  pardon. 

Miss  V.    I  would  have  trumped  it,  any  way. 

Mr.  T.    I  wish  I  knew  what  you  have. 

Miss  V.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you.  Don't  make 
it  too  dark. 

Mr.  T.    Then  I  '11  lead  diamonds. 

Miss  V.    That 's  just  right. 

Mrs.  V.    Diamonds  are  trumps. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  are  they?  Oh,  that's  too  bad. 
I  did  n't  want  trumps  led. 

Mr.  T.  But  you  said—  Why,  can't  you  go 
over  Colonel  Graham's  nine-spot? 

Miss  V.  I  made  a  mistake.  I  meant  to  play 
the  ten. 

Mrs.  V.  Shall  I  put  on  a  small  one  or  a  high 
one,  Colonel  Graham? 

Colonel  G.    The  trick  is  ours  as  it  lies. 

Mrs.  V.  Then  if  I  put  on  a  high  one  it  will  get  it 
out  of  the  way,  so  you  '11  know  what  to  do  next  time. 

Mr.  T.  Why,  you  Ve  thrown  away  the  king  of 
trumps  ! 

Mrs.  V.    Wasn't  that  right? 

Miss  V.  Why,  of  course  not,  mamma.  You 
ought  to  have  put  on  either  the  ace  or  a  low  one. 

Colonel  G.    It  is  your  lead,  Mrs.  Vaughn. 

Mrs.  V.  She  says  she  '11  trump  hearts,  and  I 
can't  play  my  knave.  I  '11  try  spades.  I  hope 
you  '11  take  it. 

Mr.  T.  And  he  did.  How  nice  to  have  a  part 
ner  do  just  what  you  tell  him  to. 


AN  EVENING   AT   IV HIST.  95 

Miss  V.    That  means  that  I  don't. 

Mr.  T.  You  are  always  satisfactory,  whatever 
you  do. 

Miss  V.  What  was  led?  Clubs?  Are  clubs 
trumps  ? 

Colonel  G.    No  ;  diamonds. 

Miss  V.  Second  hand  low.  I  know  that,  at  any 
rate,  so  there  's  a  two-spot. 

Mr.  T.  Your  mother  has  taken  it  with  the 
seven. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  and  I  had  the  ace,  king,  and  queen. 
Ought  I  to  have  played  one  of  those  ? 

Colonel  G.  If  you  tell  us  your  hand  you  must 
expect  us  to  play  to  it. 

Miss  V.    I  did  n't  mean  to  tell. 

Mrs.  V.  (leading  spades'}.  That  was  your  suit, 
wasn't  it? 

Mr.  T.    But  I  hold  the  ace. 

Miss  V.  It  was  your  own  lead,  mamma.  Any 
way,  I  '11  trump  it. 

Mr.  T.    Why,  you  Ve  trumped  my  ace. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  did  I?  I  didn't  mean  to.  Can't 
I  take  it  back? 

Colonel  G.    It  is  a  little  late,  but  still  — 

Miss  V.  Oh,  well,  never  mind.  Let  it  go.  I 
have  the  king,  any  way  {leading  if). 

Colonel  G.    But  you  just  trumped  a  spade. 

Mrs.  V.    A  revoke  !     That  gives  us  three  points. 

Miss  V.  Oh,  it  does  n't  either  !  I  did  n't  see 
that  king  at  all  when  I  trumped,  and  that  was  the 


96  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

only  spade  I  had.  I  '11  change  it  on  the  last  trick, 
and  then  it  will  be  all  right. 

Mrs.  V.  You  can't  do  that ;  can  she,  Colonel 
Graham? 

Colonel  G.    It  is  n't  customary. 

Mr.  T.  Oh,  who  wants  to  play  the  stiff  club 
rules?  I  don't;  there  isn't  any  fun  in  whist  if 
you  are  going  to  be  so  particular. 

Miss  V.    Whose  lead  is  it  now? 

Colonel  G.  If  it  is  n't  yours  it  must  be  Mr. 
Talbot's,  as  you  decide  about  that  trick. 

Mr.  T.  Then  I  '11  lead  a  spade,  and  you  can 
trump  it. 

Miss  V.  There,  that 's  better  than  having  that 
trump  wasted  on  your  ace. 

Mrs.  V.  Did  you  ever  play  Stop?  We  played 
it  last  summer  at  Bar  Harbor.  It 's  a  Western 
game,  and  you  have  chips,  just  like  poker;  and 
then  you  stop  it  if  you  have  the  stop  cards ;  and 
sometimes  you  '11  have  the  meanest  little  cards  left 
in  your  hands,  and  if  it  is  the  ace  of  diamonds  you 
have  to  pay  five  chips  for  it,  or  the  king,  or  the 
queen,  or  the  knave,  or  the  ten  ;  not  so  much,  of 
course,  but  it  all  counts  up  awfully  fast. 

Mr.  T.  Why,  that  is  ever  so  much  like  Sixty-six. 
Do  you  remember  the  time  we  tried  to  play  Sixty- 
six  on  the  Bar  Harbor  boat,  Miss  Vaughn? 

Miss  V.  Oh,  yes ;  and  Ethel  Mott  was  such 
fun.  She  just  would  cheat,  and  there  was  no  stop 
ping  her. 


AN  EVENING  AT   WHIST.  97 

Colonel  G.    It  is  your  lead,  Miss  Vaughn. 

Mrs.  V.  Oh,  just  wait  a  moment.  I  want  to 
know  if  fourth  best  has  anything  to  do  with  playing 
fourth  hand? 

Colonel  G.    Nothing  whatever. 

Mr.  T,  Oh,  fourth  best  is  one  of  those  things 
they  've  put  in  to  make  whist  scientific.  For  my 
part,  I  don't  think  there  's  any  fun  — 

Miss  V.  That 's  just  what  I  say.  When  I  play 
whist  I  want  to  have  a  good  time,  and  not  feel  as 
if  I  were  going  through  an  examination  at  a  scien 
tific  school.  Oh,  did  you  know  we  are  going  to 
have  a  whist  figure  at  Janet  Graham's  german,  Mr. 
Talbot?  Won't  that  be  fun? 

Mr.  T.    I  am  sure  then  that  you  '11  be  trump. 

Miss  V.   Thank  you. 

Mrs.  V.    How  pretty  ! 

Colonel  G.    It  is  your  lead,  Miss  Vaughn. 

Miss  V.  Why,  did  I  take  the  last  trick?  What 
shall  I  —  oh,  I  know,  —  the  ace  of  clubs. 

Mrs.  V.  The  two-spot  of  diamonds  ought  to  be 
good  for  that. 

Miss  V.  How  horrid  !  Now  the  rest  of  my 
clubs  are  n't  any  good.  Well,  any  way,  I  can  throw 
them  away. 

Mrs.  V.    Have  hearts  been  led  ? 

UTr.  T.    I  'm  sure  I  can't  remember. 

Miss  V.  (examining  tricks] .  Yes,  here 's  one 
heart  trick. 

Mrs.  V.    Well,  I  must  lead  it,  and   I  'm  sure  I 

7 


98  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

don't  remember  about  it  at  all.  I  '11  lead  a  small 
one.  Was  that  right,  Colonel  Graham? 

Colonel  G.    You  might  have  led  your  knave. 

Mrs.  V.  Why,  how  did  you  know  I  had  the 
knave.  I  declare,  it 's  like  witchcraft,  the  way  you 
keep  run  of  the  cards.  I  suppose  you  know  where 
every  card  is.  Who  took  that? 

Colonel  G.    I  did. 

Mr.  T.  I  ought  to  have  trumped  that,  but  I  do 
hate  to  trump  second  hand. 

Colonel  G.    But  you  played  suit. 

Mr.  T.    So  I  did.     I  forgot  that. 

Colonel  G.  (showing  hand).  The  rest  of  the 
tricks  are  mine. 

Miss  V.  Why,  I  have  the  king  and  queen  of 
clubs,  and  you  have  n't  a  club  in  your  hand. 

Colonel  G.  That  is  why  the  tricks  are  mine.  I 
can  keep  the  lead  to  the  end.  I  am  very  sorry, 
Mrs.  Vaughn  ;  but  I  am  suddenly  attacked  with  a 
nervous  headache,  so  that  I  cannot  possibly  go  on 
playing.  I  shall  have  to  ask  to  be  excused. 

Mrs.  V.  Oh,  don't  break  up  the  game  when  we 
are  getting  along  so  well. 

Colonel  G.  I  am  very  sorry ;  but  I  must  go.  I 
have  enjoyed  the  game  extremely. 

Mr.  T.    Are  you  out? 

Colonel  G.    Yes. 

Mrs.  V.    I  'm  sure  it  was  all  owing  to  you. 

Colonel  G.  It  was  all  owing  to  the  fall  of  the 
cards.  I  have  n't  done  anything. 


JN  EVENING  AT  WHIST.  99 

Miss  V.  I  'm  sure  we  did  n't  have  anything  on 
our  side  at  all.  I  hate  whist  anyway;  you  have 
to  be  so  quiet,  and  study  on  it  so. 

Mr.  T.    Yes,  I  think  it 's  awfully  hard  work. 

Colonel  G.  Oh,  you  '11  have  better  luck  next 
time.  Good-by  ;  don't  rise. 

[And  the  Colonel  goes  to  the  club  to  relieve  his 
mind  by  a  quantity  of  vigorous  expletives,  and  then 
to  settle  down  to  an  evening  of  what  he  calls  real 
whist.'] 


€ale 


SAUCY  BETTY   MORK. 


SAUCY   BETTY   MORK. 


I. 

f,UT,  Miss  Bessie  —  " 

"  I  have  told  you  a  dozen  times, 
Mr.  Granton,  that  my  name  is  not 
Bessie.  I  abhor  that  final  ie  ;  and 
more  than  that,  I  was  christened  Betty,  — 
plain  Betty,  — and  Betty  I  will  be." 

"  Miss  Betty,  then,  if  that  suits  you ; 
though  why  you  should  be  so  particular 
about  that  old-fashioned  name,  I  'm  sure  I 
can't  conceive." 

"  In  the  first  place,  it  is  my  name,"  Betty 
replied,  bending  upon  him  a  glance  at  once 
bewitching  and  tantalizing;  "that  ought  to 
count  for  something;  and  in  the  second 
place,  my  family  name  is  n't  one  that  lends 
itself  to  soft  prefixes.  Besides  all  which, 
there  has  been  a  Betty  Mork  from  time  im 
memorial  ;  and  I  shall  never  be  one  to  spoil 
the  line  by  changing  my  name." 

"What?"  Mr.  Granton  demanded  mis 
chievously.  "  Never  change  it?  Are  you 
vowed  to  eternal  single  blessedness,  then,  or 


104  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

shall  you  imitate  the  women's-rights  women, 
who  — 

"  It  is  really  none  of  your  affair  what  I  intend 
to  do,"  returned  she,  bridling;  "  only,  to  go 
back  to  what  we  started  on,  I  do  intend  to  play 
in  the  tournament  with  Frank  Bradford.  I  am 
not  in  the  habit  of  breaking  my  promises." 

The  pair  walked  along  the  shady  country 
road  without  speaking  for  a  moment  or  two, 
the  young  man  inclined  to  be  sulky,  his  com 
panion  saucy  and  good-natured.  The  drop 
ping  sunshine,  falling  through  the  gently 
waving  elm-boughs,  struck  golden  lights  out 
of  Miss  Mork's  abundant  chestnut  hair, — •  her 
one  beauty,  it  amused  her  to  call  it,  although 
the  smile  which  brought  out  her  dimples  and 
the  lustre  of  her  eyes  contradicted  the  words 
even  while  they  were  being  spoken.  Young 
Granton  was  fully  alive  to  the  attractiveness 
of  the  lithe  figure  beside  him;  indeed,  for  his 
own  peace  of  mind,  far  too  keenly.  He  was 
aware,  too,  of  the  difficulty  of  managing  the 
wilful  beauty,  whose  independence  was  suffi 
ciently  understood  by  all  the  summer  idlers 
at  Maugus. 

"  But  you  certainly  knew  I  expected  you 
to  play  in  the  tournament  with  me,"  he  be 
gan  again,  returning  to  the  attack. 

"  It  is  n't  modest  for  a  girl  ever  to  know 


SAUCY  BETTY   MORK  105 

what  a  man  expects  of  her  until  she  's  told," 
Betty  replied  demurely,  "  even  in  tennis. 
And  besides,  it  was  presumptuous  for  you  to 
be  so  royally  certain  of  my  acquiescence  in 
whatever  you  deigned  to  plan." 

"  I  '11  serve  a  cut  so  that  you  '11  never  be 
able  to  return  it,"  threatened  he. 

"  I  can  serve  a  cut  myself,"  she  retorted, 
with  an  accent  which  seemed  to  indicate  a 
double  significance  in  the  words. 

"  Confound  it !  "  he  said,  incisively,  with 
sudden  and  inconsistent  change  of  base,  "  it 
is  perfect  folly  letting  ladies  into  a  tourna 
ment  anyway.  Who  wants  them?  They 
always  make  trouble." 

"  I  understood  that  you  wanted  one,"  Betty 
answered,  unmoved,  observing  the  fringe  of 
her  parasol  with  great  apparent  interest; 
"  but  of  course  I  knew  your  invitation  was  not 
to  be  taken  too  seriously." 

"  Oh,  bother !  "  the  young  man  cried,  slash 
ing  viciously  at  the  head  of  a  late-blooming 
daisy.  "  Why  do  you  always  insist  on  quar 
relling  with  me?  " 

"  Are  we  really  quarrelling?  "  she  laughed 
back  with  her  most  exasperating  lightness  of 
manner.  "  How  delightful !  If  there  is  one 
thing  that  I  enjoy  more  than  I  do  tennis,  it  is 
a  good  quarrel." 


106  A   BOOK  O  NINE    TALES. 

"  Tennis !  "  Granton  retorted,  the  last 
shreds  of  his  patience  giving  way.  "  It  must 
be  allowed  that  you  can  quarrel  better  than 
you  can  play.  No  girl,"  he  went  on,  with  in 
creasing  acerbity,  "  can  ever  really  play  ten 
nis :  she  only  plays  at  playing  it;  and  it 
spoils  any  man's  game  to  play  with  her.  For 
my  part,  I  cannot  see  why  they  are  to  be 
admitted  to  the  tournament  at  all." 

"  Merci!  "  exclaimed  Mistress  Betty,  stop 
ping  in  the  sun-dappled  way  to  make  him 
a  profound  courtesy.  "  Now  I  know  what 
your  true  sentiments  are,  and  how  much 
your  invitation  was  worth.  Thank  you  for 
nothing,  Mr.  Nat  Granton.  I  wish  you  luck 
of  your  partner,  —  when  you  get  one.  It  is 
a  cruel  shame  that  by  the  rules  of  the  tour 
nament  it  must  be  a  girl !  " 

And  before  Granton  was  able  to  reply  or 
knew  what  she  intended,  pretty  Miss  Mork, 
with  her  tripping  gait,  her  bright  eyes,  ugly 
name,  and  all,  had  whisked  through  a  turn 
stile  and  was  half-way  across  the  lawn  of 
the  cottage  where  her  particular  bosom- 
friend  Miss  Dora  Mosely  was  spending  the 
summer. 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  IO/ 


II. 

WHILE  Granton  continued  his  perturbed 
way  down  the  lovely  village  street  to  the  Elm 
House,  which  for  the  time  being  was  the 
home  of  a  pleasant  colony  of  summer  idlers 
seeking  rest  and  diversion  in  Maugus,  Miss 
Betty  flitted  lightly  over  the  lawn  and  joined 
her  friend,  whom  she  found  reposing  in  a 
hammock  swung  under  the  cool  veranda. 

"  Oh,  Dolly,"  was  her  breathless  salutation, 
"  I  Ve  got  the  awfullest  thing  to  do  !  But  I  '11 
do  it,  or  perish  in  the  attempt!  " 

"  Halloo,  Betty!  "  was  Miss  Mosely's  re 
sponse  and  greeting  ;  "  how  like  a  whirlwind 
you  are!  What  is  the  matter?  What  have 
you  got  to  do?  " 

"  Beat  Mr.  Granton  at  tennis  in  the  tour 
nament." 

"You  and  Mr.  Bradford,  you  mean?  " 

"  No  ;  I  mean  all  by  myself,  —  in  a  single. 
I  sha'n't  play  in  the  double  at  all,  if  I  can 
get  out  of  it  without  sneaking." 

"  What  in  the  world  has  happened  to  bring 
you  to  this  desperate  frame  of  mind?  " 

"  Well,  Dolly,  the  fact  is,  Mr.  Granton  has 
been  making  himself  particularly  odious  be- 


108  A   BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES, 

cause  I  would  n't  throw  over  Frank  Bradford 
to  play  with  him,  and  —  " 

"  I  told  you,"  her  friend  interrupted  judi 
cially,  examining  the  toe  of  her  slipper  with 
much  interest  and  satisfaction,  "  that  you  'd 
be  sorry  you  agreed  to  play  with  Frank." 

"  But  I  'm  not  sorry,"  protested  the  other, 
with  spirit.  "  Do  you  think  I  'm  so  bound 
up  in  Nat  Granton  that  I  can't  get  on  with 
out  him?  If  he  wanted  me  to  play  with  him 
why  did  n't  he  ask  me,  instead  of  taking  it 
for  granted,  in  that  insufferably  conceited 
way  of  his,  that  I  'd  stand  about  and  wait  on 
his  lordship's  leisure  ?  Oh,  I  '11  pay  him  off! 
I  shall  go  over  to  grandmother's  every 
blessed  day  from  now  until  the  tournament 
and  practise,  so  as  to  take  down  his  top-lofti- 
cal  airs." 

At  which  exhibition  of  spite  and  determi 
nation  Miss  Mosely  fell  to  laughing,  and  said 
Betty's  manner  suggested  pickled  limes, 
which  in  turn  reminded  her  of  the  chocolate- 
creams  they  had  at  boarding-school,  and  that 
brought  to  mind  some  particularly  delicious 
marshmallows  which  had  been  saved  until 
Betty  should  come  over;  and  she  added  that 
it  would  be  a  very  good  plan  to  go  into  the 
house  and  devour  them. 

Over  the  flabby  and  inane  confection  with 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  109 

which  the  two  friends  regaled  themselves,  it 
was  arranged  that  Dora  should  devote  herself 
with  Machiavelian  shrewdness  to  bringing 
about  a  reconciliation  between  Frank  Brad 
ford  and  his  betrothed,  Flora  Sturtevant, 
whose  quarrel  had  led  to  the  invitation  which 
had  involved  Betty  in  her  present  difficulties. 
In  the  meantime,  Mistress  Mork  was  to  give 
herself  with  great  assiduity  to  the  practice 
of  cutting,  volleying,  and  such  devices  of  skill 
or  cunning  as  would  make  possible  the  reali 
zation  of  her  bold  plan  of  conquering  Mr. 
Granton  in  the  tennis  tournament,  over  which 
all  the  young  people  were  just  then  much 
excited. 

These  conclusions  were  not  reached  with 
out  much  digression,  circumlocution,  and  ir 
relevant  discourse  upon  various  matters,  with 
a  good  deal  of  consideration  of  the  dress 
which  would  be  both  convenient  and  becom 
ing  for  the  important  games. 

"  I  have  almost  a  mind  to  try  a  divided 
skirt,"  Betty  said  thoughtfully.  "  George 
saw  one  at  a  tournament  in  England,  and  it 
could  be  fixed  so  as  not  —  Oh,  Dora,  if 
George  were  only  here  !  He  knows  all  the 
new  English  rules  and  cuts,  and  all  sorts  of 
quirks.  Oh,  why  did  you  have  to  quarrel 
with  him  just  now?  Now  I  shall  lose  my 


1 10  A  BOOK  a   NINE   TALES. 

tennis  just  because  you  drove  him  away  from 
Maugus." 

"  Why,  Betty  Mork  !  You  said  yourself 
you  wouldn't  stand  his  lordly  ways;  you 
know  you  did." 

"  Of  course,"  returned  her  friend  illogi- 
cally ;  "  but  we  both  agreed  that  you  'd  have 
to  make  up  with  him  some  time ;  and  I 
did  n't  know  then  that  I  should  want  him." 

"  But  what  could  I  do?  "  demanded  Dora, 
divided  between  a  sense  of  being  deserted  by 
her  friend  and  a  desire  to  have  difficulties 
smoothed  over.  "  Any  girl  with  decent  pride 
would  have  had  to  send  George  away.  You 
know  how  I  hated  to  do  it." 

"  But  you  might  send  for  him  now." 

"  Oh,  I  could  n't.  That  would  be  too  aw 
fully  humiliating.  I  wonder  you  can  propose 
it." 

, "  Men  are  so  dreadful,"  sighed  Betty. 

The  two  forlorn  victims  of  masculine  per 
versity  pensively  ate  marshmallows  in  silence 
for  a  moment,  revolving,  no  doubt,  the  most 
profound  reflections  upon  the  vanity  of 
human  affairs. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  will  do,"  Betty  said  at 
length,  reflectively.  "  I  '11  write  to  George 
and  make  him  visit  grandmother.  He  has  n't 
been  there  for  a  year,  to  stay;  and,  as  grand- 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  1 1 1 

mother  says,  she  '  admires  to  have  him.'  I  '11 
tell  him  if  he  '11  stay  there,  out  of  sight,  I 
think  I  can  fix  things  with  you." 

"  Oh,  you  delicious,  darling  hypocrite  !  " 
exclaimed  her  friend,  embracing  her  raptur 
ously.  "  You  are  a  perfect  treasure,  Bet !  I  '11 
do  anything  to  help  you,  —  anything.  I  've 
been  perfectly  wretched  ever  since  George 
went  away;  but  of  course  I  could  n't  say  so, 
if  I  'd  died." 

III. 

"  So  you  arc  not  going  to  play  with  Brad 
ford,  after  all?"  Nat  Granton  said,  flinging 
himself  on  the  turf  at  Miss  Mork's  feet  as  she 
sat  watching  the  tennis-players  practising  for 
the  tournament. 

"  No,"  she  answered.  "  He  and  Flora  have 
recovered  from  their  temporary  alienation, 
and  I  was  generous  and  took  myself  out  of 
the  way." 

"  Will  you*  play  with  me?  " 

"  Thank  you  ;  no.  I  shall  not  go  into  any 
team ;  and  in  any  case,  I  know  too  well  your 
sentiments  on  the  subject  of  girls'  playing  to 
trespass  on  your  good  nature." 

"  Then  I  shall  not  play,"  he  said,  rather 
crossly. 

"  And  pray  what  do  I  care  if  you  don't?  " 


112  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

"  It  would  be  polite  to  pretend  to,  at  any 

rate." 

"  '  The  slightest  approach  to  a  false  pretence 
Was  never  among  my  crimes  ; '  " 

she  quoted,  twirling  her  gay  parasol  swiftly 
on  its  handle.  "  Do  see  Tom  Carruth  serve. 
That  cut  is  my  despair." 

"  It  is  simple  enough  to  return,"  Granton 
answered,  "  if  you  know  when  it  is  coming: 
you  've  only  to  run  up." 

"  Yes,  but  how  is  one  to  know  when  it  is 
coming?  " 

"  One  always  can  tell  when  I  give  it,"  he  re 
plied,  laughing,  "  for  I  always  fling  my  head 
back." 

There  came  a  wicked  sparkle  of  intelli 
gence  into  Betty's  eyes  as  she  made  a 
mental  note  of  this  confession  for  future  use. 
Then  the  long  lashes  fell  demurely  over  her 
cheeks  as  she  gathered  together  her  belong 
ings  and  rose. 

"  I  must  go  over  to  grandmother's,"  she 
said.  "  Never  spend  the  summer  near  your 
grandmother's,  Mr.  Granton:  she  may  be  ill 
and  absorb  all  your  spare  time." 

And  away  sped  the  deceitful  damsel,  on 
nefarious  schemes  intent,  to  play  tennis  with 
her  cousin  George,  who  had  responded  with 
celerity  to  her  summons.  She  was  really  im- 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  113 

proving  with  a  good  deal  of  rapidity.  She 
had  been  a  sad  romp  in  her  day,  and  every 
prank  of  her  tomboy  girlhood  stood  her  in 
good  stead  now.  Every  fence  and  tree  she 
had  climbed,  to  the  unspeakable  horror  and 
scandal  of  elderly  spinster  aunts,  every  game 
of  ball  for  which  she  had  been  lectured  by 
an  eminently  proper  governess,  every  stolen 
fishing-expedition  and  hoydenish  race  whose 
improprieties  my  lady  buried  with  over 
whelming  scorn  in  the  oblivion  of  the  past, 
had  been  a  preparation  for  the  struggle  into 
which  she  now  threw  herself  with  the  whole 
force  of  mind  and  body. 

Her  cousin  George  Snow,  who  was  suffi 
ciently  fond  of  his  mischievous  cousin,  and 
duly  grateful  for  her  supposed  good  offices 
in  arranging  the  difficulties  between  himself 
and  Dora,  was  an  invaluable  ally.  He  was 
taken  into  full  confidence,  and  embraced  the 
project  most  heartily.  Granton  was  a  right 
nice  fellow,  he  admitted,  but  it  certainly  would 
not  hurt  him  to  be  taken  down  a  peg.  Snow 
had  just  returned  from  England,  where  he  had 
seen  some  of  the  finest  tennis-players  perform. 

"  You  play  too  near  the  net,"  he  said. 
"  All  American  players  do.  Play  well  back, 
and  above  everything,  put  all  your  force 
into  the  return." 


114  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

"  But  I  shall  send  the  ball  out  of  the  court," 
Betty  protested. 

"  You  must  n't.  Drive  it  down  as  hard  as 
ever  you  can.  Strength  —  or  rather  swiftness 
—  tells;  if  your  service  is  swift  enough  it  is 
worth  all  the  fancy  cuts  in  the  world.  The 
Renshaws  make  half  their  points  by  volley 
ing  from  the  service-line,  and  the  rest  by 
swift  service." 

"  Swiftness  is  the  word,"  Betty  returned 
gayly.  "  Anything  more?  " 

"  Get  used  to  striking  back-handed ;  don't 
try  to  turn  your  thumb  down;  make  a  busi 
ness  of  an  out-and-out  back-handed,  wrong- 
side-of-the-racquet  stroke." 

How  sound  all  this  advice  was,  tennis  play 
ers  may  determine  for  themselves ;  but  it  cer 
tainly  served  its  purpose  well.  Betty  was  a 
promising  pupil.  Morning,  noon,  and  night 
she  played,  working  with  an  assiduity  which 
nearly  fagged  her  cousin  out. 

"  You  are  plucky,  Betty,"  he  declared  one 
day.  "  I  'm  afraid  for  my  own  laurels.  And 
by  the  way,  am  I  to  be  allowed  to  be  present 
at  this  great  tournament  in  which  you  are  to 
cover  yourself  and  your  sex  with  glory?" 

"  Oh,  yes;  you  are  to  challenge  Mr.  Gran- 
ton  if  he  beats  me,  —  though  he  sha'n't ! 
Anybody  can  challenge  the  winner,  you 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  115 

know.  That 's  a  provision  I  had  put  in  my 
self  to  cover  my  own  case." 

"  Poor  Granton  !  "  George  laughed.  "  Little 
does  he  dream  of  the  awful  humiliation  in 
store  for  him." 

Betty  set  her  lips  together  and  nodded  her 
head  in  a  determined  way. 

"  George,"  she  declared,  with  tragic  earn 
estness,  "  if  I  get  beaten  I  shall  go  straight 
home  and  die  of  — 

"  Baffled  stubbornness,"  interpolated  her 
cousin. 

"  Thwarted  vengeance,"  suggested  Dora. 

"  No,  of  righteous  indignation.  Come,  one 
set  more  before  we  drive  back  to  Maugus. 
Only  two  days  left,  you  know." 


IV. 

THE  morning  of  the  second  day  of  the 
tournament  dawned  clear,  and  what  was  quite 
as  much  to  the  purpose,  unusually  cool.  A 
little  breeze  from  the  northwest  crept  over 
the  hills, — just  enough  to  fan  the  heated 
players  without  disturbing  the  flight  of  the 
balls ;  while  to  make  the  weather  perfect  for 
tennis,  by  ten  o'clock  a  light  veil  of  clouds 
had  comfortably  covered  the  sun,  cutting  off 
all  troublesome  rays. 


Il6  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

"  It  is  a  perfect  day,"  Betty  remarked  to 
Dora,  as  they  took  their  places  among  the 
spectators.  "  I  've  put  my  things  ready  so  I 
can  dress  in  two  minutes.  Here  comes 
George." 

The  affair  was  an  event  in  quiet  Maugus. 
It  had  been  talked  about  as  the  most  impor 
tant  event  could  not  have  been  discussed 
anywhere  but  in  the  idle  hours  of  summer 
leisure,  and  had  come  to  be  regarded  as 
quite  the  event  of  the  season.  The  tennis- 
court  was  laid  out  near  the  Elm  House,  and 
was  surrounded  by  superb  old  trees  that  in 
all  the  slow  years  of  their  growth  had  never 
over-arched  a  prettier  sight  than  that  after 
noon  showed,  with  its  groups  of  nice  old 
ladies,  and  charming  young  damsels  in  all  the 
picturesque  bravery  of  their  nineteenth-cen 
tury  costume.  The  contest  of  the  first  day 
of  the  tournament  had  disposed  of  all  the 
four-handed  games  but  the  final  match,  and 
the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  was  left  free 
for  the  single  games.  Granton  had  entered 
for  the  latter,  and  was  looked  upon  as  the 
probable  victor.  He  won  easily  his  first  rub 
ber,  and  came  over  to  where  Betty  sat  to 
wait  his  turn  again. 

"  It  is  lucky  for  me,  Mr.  Snow,"  he  said  to 
George,  who  in  the  happiness  of  full  rcconcil- 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  117 

iation  sat  by  Dora's  side,  "  that  you  arc  not 
playing,  or  I  should  n't  have  the  ghost  of  a 
chance." 

'*  I  'm  resting  on  the  laurels  I  won  last 
year,"  was  the  light  response.  "  It 's  far  easier 
than  to  risk  one's  reputation  and  defend  it." 

"  Are  you  so  sure  of  winning,  as  it  is,  Mr. 
Granton?"  asked  Betty  coolly. 

"Sure?  Of  course  not;  but  I  have  hopes 
now,  which  I  should  n't  indulge  if  Mr.  Snow, 
with  the  glory  of  his  victories  at  Newport 
last  year,  were  counted  in." 

"  I  wish  you  success,"  she  said,  with  a  certain 
trace  of  satire  in  her  tone.  "  Is  n't  Mr.  How 
ard  playing  remarkably  well  to-day?  What  a 
splendid  volley?  That  gives  him  the  game." 

"Sets:  two,  love,"  called  the  scorer,  and 
Mr.  Howard's  victory  was  saluted  with  ap 
plause,  which  Mistress  Betty  took  great  satis 
faction  in  leading. 

"  You  seem  to  be  greatly  pleased  at  How 
ard's  good  luck,"  Granton  observed,  remem 
bering  that  when  his  success  had  been 
clapped,  just  before,  Miss  Mork  had  refrained 
from  lending  a  hand. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  be?"  she  returned. 
"I've  bet  him  a  pair  of  gloves  he  wins." 

"  What  will  you  bet  me  I  lose?  "  demanded 
he,  not  especially  pleased  at  any  sort  of  un- 


I  1 8  A   BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

derstanding  between  the  young  lady  before 
him  and  Howard. 

"  Anything  you  like." 

"I  should  like  nothing  so  much  as  — 

"  As  what?" 

"  No ;  upon  reflection  I  don't  think  I  dare 
mention  it,"  Granton  said  coolly,  looking  at 
her  with  an  expression  in  his  big  brown  eyes 
which  made  her  flush  in  spite  of  herself. 

"  Don't  be  impudent,"  she  replied.  "  That 
is  my  province." 

"  Time  !  "  called  the  umpire,  a  little  later. 
"  Howard  and  Granton,  concluding  set." 

"  Wish  me  luck,"  Granton  murmured,  bend 
ing  toward  Betty  as  he  rose. 

"  I'm  sure  I  do,  for  my  own  sake,"  she  re 
sponded,  with  an  ambiguity  he  afterward  had 
reason  to  understand. 

"  What  shall  I  do  if  Mr.  Howard  beats 
him?"  Betty  said  to  George  and  Dora,  as 
the  set  began.  "  There  'd  be  no  fun  playing 
him  instead  of  Mr.  Granton." 

"  Oh,  Howard  has  n't  the  ghost  of  a 
chance,"  George  responded  reassuringly- 
"  You  are  all  right,  Bet,  if  you  don't  get 
nervous." 

But  Betty  did  get  nervous.  The  color  came 
and  went  in  her  cheeks  almost  as  swiftly  as 
the  flying  balls  were  thrown,  whose  skilful 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  119 

service  and  returns  soon  proved  Snow  to  be 
right  in  asserting  that  Howard  had  no  chance 
against  his  antagonist. 

"  Oh,  George,"  she  whispered,  in  an  agony 
of  apprehension,  "  can  I  do  it?  Won't  he 
beat  me?  It  would  be  too  horrible  to  chal 
lenge  him  and  then  fail !  " 

"  Do  it?  "  retorted  her  cousin  ;  "  of  course 
you  can  do  it !  See  that  short  serve.  That 's 
what's  breaking  Howard  up:  it's  easy  for 
you  to  return  if  you  '11  run  up  to  it.  His 
swift  service  does  n't  begin  to  be  as  good 
as  yours." 

"  Love  set,"  called  the  scorer;  and  as  Betty 
looked  at  the  supple,  muscular  figure  of  Nat 
Granton  while  the  players  exchanged  courts, 
her  fears  almost  overcame  her  resolve. 

"  My  heart  is  thumping  against  my  very 
boot-heels,  Dolly."  she  confided  to  her  friend. 
"  It 's  no  sort  of  use." 

"Are  you  going  to  give  up?"  demanded 
Dora  curiously,  and  perhaps  a  little  tauntingly. 

"  Give  up  !  "  cried  Mistress  Mork  stoutly. 
"  Do  I  ever  give  up?  I  '11  die  first!  But  I 
do  wish  he  would  n't  get  so  many  love 
games!  It's  dreadfully  discouraging." 

Granton  was,  in  truth,  having  everything 
his  own  way.  Howard,  although  a  good 
player,  had  somehow  lost  his  coolness,  and 


120  A  BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

was  soon  demoralized  by  a  peculiar  short, 
cutting  service,  of  which  his  opponent  had 
complete  mastery,  and  which  he  was  unable 
to  return.  His  play  became  wild  and  un 
even,  and  the  contest  was  quickly  decided 
against  him. 

The  master  of  ceremonies  came  forward 
with  the  announcement  that  the  prize  rac 
quet  belonged  to  Mr.  Nathaniel  Granton,  but 
that,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  tour 
nament,  any  person  had  now  a  right  to  chal 
lenge  the  winner  to  play  for  the  prize,  by  the 
best  two  games  in  three. 

There  was  a  rustle,  and  then  a  pause,  as 
many  eyes  were  turned  toward  George  Snow, 
who  had  won  in  the  Newport  games  the 
summer  before.  But  that  gentleman  sat 
quiet  in  his  place,  a  smile  of  amusement 
stealing  over  his  comely  features  as  Dora 
said,  in  the  most  tragic  of  whispers, — 

"  Oh,  Betty,  how  can  you?  " 

But  Betty,  her  head  thrown  a  trifle  back, 
and  the  color  flaming  hotly  into  her  face, 
rose  with  a  charming  mixture  of  dignity 
and  shyness,  and  walked,  before  them  all, 
straight  up  to  the  judges. 

"  I  challenge  the  winner  to  a  match,"  she 
said,  steadily  enough,  although  she  confided 
to  Dora  afterward  that  she  felt  as  if  every 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  12  I 

word  had  to  be  dragged  out  by  main  force. 
"  I  should  like  five  minutes  to  change  my 
dress." 

Granton  uttered  a  low,  sharp  whistle,  and 
doffed  his  cap. 

"  All  right,"  the  master  of  ceremonjes 
returned.  "  Be  as  quick  as  you  can." 

"  I  '11  not  keep  you  waiting  long,"  she  as 
sured  him,  and  turned  to  beckon  Dora  to  her. 

As  the  two  girls  disappeared  into  the 
hotel,  the  bustle  and  chatter  began  again 
with  renewed  vigor,  and  swelled  and  buzzed 
in  the  liveliest  fashion.  Here  was  a  genuine 
sensation  for  Maugus.  Betty  was  too  lovely 
and  too  great  a  favorite  with  the  men  wholly 
to  escape  the  censure  of  the  young  ladies, 
who  now  had  a  string  of  pretty  things  to  say 
of  her  boldness  and  presumption.  But  the 
gentlemen  rallied  to  a  man  in  her  support, 
and,  by  the  time  she  reappeared,  public 
opinion,  as  represented  by  the  spectators  of 
the  tournament,  if  not  wholly  in  her  favor, 
was  so  in  outward  expression. 

She  was  dressed  in  a  dark-blue  jersey  of 
silk,  which  fitted  her  in  that  perfect  combi 
nation  only  possible  with  a  faultless  figure 
and  an  irreproachable  jersey ;  and  below 
that  a  skirt  of  navy-blue  flannel  fell  in 
straight  plaits  to  her  ankles,  where  one 


122  A  BOOK  a  NINE    TALES. 

caught,  as  she  moved,  occasional  glimpses 
of  a  crimson  stocking,  the  exact  shade  of 
her  flat  sash  and  of  the  close  wing-tip  in  her 
trig  little  blue  silk  cap.  There  was  nothing 
of  the  nature  of  tags  and  ends  about  her 
costume.  Her  hair  was  closely  coiled,  and 
even  her  ear-rings  had  been  removed.  The 
crimson  handkerchief  about  her  white  throat 
was  fastened  into  its  place  so  securely  as 
scarcely  to  be  less  smooth  when  the  playing 
was  over  than  when  the  first  game  began. 

She  was  very  sober,  —  so  grave,  indeed, 
that  George  went  over  to  her  just  as  she 
took  her  place,  to  say  some  absurd  thing  to 
make  her  laugh. 

"  Don't  be  nervous,"  he  added,  having 
succeeded  in  his  object  so  far  as  to  call  a 
fleeting  smile  to  her  face.  "  And  don't 
look  as  if  assisting  at  your  own  obsequies. 
You  are  all  right,  if  you  '11  only  think  so." 

"  Will  she  do  it?  "  Dora  asked  anxiously, 
as  he  took  his  seat  again. 

"  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  he  answered. 
"I've  told  her  she  will,  and  I  hope  so;  but 
it  is  n't  going  to  be  so  easy." 

They  talked  of  that  tennis  tournament  for 
many  a  long  day  in  Maugus.  Opinion  was 
divided  at  first  as  to  the  probable  result. 
There  was  a  quiet  concentration  in  Betty's 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  123 

manner  \vhich  soon  began  to  awake  confi 
dence  in  her  ultimate  success,  although  at 
first  she  lost.  Even  the  most  envious  of  the 
girls  soon  found  themselves  applauding  every 
lucky  hit  she  made;  and  Betty,  whose  senses 
were  keenly  alive  that  day,  felt  the  stimu 
lating  consciousness  that  the  general  sym 
pathy  was  with  her.  She  threw  her  whole 
soul  into  her  playing,  every  point  she  lost 
arousing  her  to  new  exertions. 

"By  Jove!  Dora,"  George  said,  "Gran- 
ton  's  bound  to  get  a  lesson.  Betty's  blood 
is  getting  up.  I  'm  convinced  now  that  she  '11 
win,  and  I  '11  bet  you  the  gloves  that  she 
beats  him  a  love  set  before  she 's  done." 

Dora  was  too  excited  to  answer  him.  She 
hoped  he  might  be  right,  but  just  now  Betty 
was  losing.  She  had  been  beaten  three 
games  out  of  five,  and  the  present  one,  on 
Granton's  service,  was  going  hard  against 
her.  Granton  was  harassing  her  with  his 
short  cut,  which  fell  before  her  racquet 
reached  it  nearly  every  time. 

"  What's  got  into  her?"  George  muttered 
uneasily.  "  Ah,  that  was  better.  Good 
return." 

And  he  led  the  hand-clapping  which 
greeted  the  difficult  stroke  by  which  Betty 
brought  the  score  up  to  deuce.  The  game 


124  A  BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

v/ent  against  her,  however,  and  soon  after, 
the  set. 

"  I  '11  do  it,  George,"  Betty  said  under  her 
breath,  as  she  passed  him  in  changing  courts. 
"  Don't  be  discouraged.  The  Mork  blood 
is  up." 

"  It 's  all  on  his  cuts,  Bet.  Run  up  to  them. 
Watch  his  service,  and  you  can  tell  when 
they  are  coming.  Nat  could  never  serve  a 
decent  swift  ball." 

Betty  nodded  and  went  on  to  her  place. 

"  Play  !  "  called  Granton. 

Watching  him,  his  opponent  noticed  him 
throw  his  head  back,  and  remembered  his 
telling  her  that  he  always  betrayed  his  cut 
ting.  She  ran  toward  the  net  as  the  ball 
came  down,  and  returned  it  like  a  cannon- 
ball. 

"  She  's  got  it !  "  cried  Snow,  with  great 
glee,  in  his  excitement  calling  so  loudly  that 
both  the  players  heard  him.  "  She 's  all 
right  now.  Oh,  that 's  beautiful !  " 

Granton  tried  a  couple  of  swift  balls  and 
faulted  them  both. 

"  Love  ;   thirty,"  called  the  scorer. 

Another  cut ;  again  cleverly  intercepted  ; 
then  a  fault  and  an  easy,  round-hand  service- 

"  Love ;   game." 

The  applause  was  really  quite  tremendous. 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  125 

"  They  are  all  against  me,"  Granton  ob 
served  to  Betty,  handing  her  the  balls 
over  the  net  and  laughing  rather  ruefully. 
"  Public  opinion  would  be  positively  out 
raged  if  you  should  fail." 

"  I  Ve  no  intention  of  failing,  thank  you," 
she  returned,  with  spirit;  and  away  she 
swept  to  her  position.  "  Play  !  " 

Granton  was  himself  on  his  mettle,  yet  he 
did  not  play  his  best.  He  could  not  fully 
recover  from  his  surprise  at  the  style  of  his 
adversary's  play.  The  swiftness  of  her  ser 
vice  and  returns  was  so  different  from  what 
was  expected  of  a  girl  that  he  was  scarcely 
on  his  guard  against  it  up  to  the  very  end. 
He  felt  the  sympathy  of  the  spectators,  too, 
to  be  against  him,  and  this  was  not  without 
its  influence.  He  lost  the  set,  and  with  it, 
by  an  unfortunate  chance,  his  good  nature. 

"  Sets,  one  all,"  the  scorer  announced ; 
and  something  in  the  saucy  toss  of  Betty's 
lovely  head,  as,  flushed  and  panting,  she 
stood  talking  with  George  and  Dora,  jarred 
upon  her  lover's  nerves  with  sudden  irritation. 
An  unreasonable  madness  took  possession 
of  him.  How  much  was  wounded  vanity, 
it  might  not  be  easy  to  say ;  but  under  the 
circumstances,  with  all  his  mates  grinning 
at  his  failure,  it  was  not  at  all  strange  that 


126  A   BOOK  O'   NINE    TALES. 

his  feelings  were  not  wholly  placid.  His 
play  in  the  third  and  decisive  set  became 
rash  and  excited.  He  lost  his  head  a  little, 
and  before  he  fairly  knew  how  it  happened 
the  score  was  called  on  Betty's  service :  — 

"  Games  ;    five,  love  " 

"  Good  !  "  was  George  Snow's  comment. 
"  I  told  you  she  'd  beat  a  love  set  before 
she  was  done.  —  Oh,  keep  your  head,  Bet !  " 

Betty  delivered  a  ball  swift  as  a  bullet 
and  just  clearing  the  net. 

"  Fifteen  ;   love." 

A  fault,  and  then  another  swift  ball,  which 
skimmed  like  a  swallow  over  the  net  and 
struck  the  ground  only  to  cling  to  it  in  a 
swift  roll. 

"Thirty;    love." 

The  next  ball  was  beaten  back  and  forth 
until  Granton  dashed  it  to  the  ground  at 
Betty's  very  feet. 

"Thirty;   fifteen." 

The  excitement  was  at  its  height.  Even 
those  who  did  not  appreciate  the  finer  points 
of  the  play  caught  the  interest  and  somehow 
understood  pretty  accurately  how  matters 
stood,  and  were  as  earnest  as  the  rest. 
Small-talk  was  forgotten,  heads  were  craned 
forward,  and  all  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the 
players.  Betty  grasped  her  racquet  by 


SAUCY  BETTY  MOR.K.  127 

the  extreme  end  of  its  handle,  and  held  the 
ball  as  high  above  her  head  as  she  could 
reach. 

"  Play  !  " 

She  struck  it  with  all  her  force. 

"  Forty ;  -fifteen,"  was  the  scorer's  call ;  and 
Nat  Granton  understood  that  only  one  stroke 
lay  between  him  and  defeat  by  a  love  set. 

George  Snow  deliberately  turned  away  his 
face. 

"  I  never  supposed  I  could  be  such  a  con 
summate  fool,"  he  said  afterward,  "  but  I 
positively  could  not  look  at  your  last  service, 
Bet.  I  felt  as  if  the  whole  universe  were  at 
stake." 

As  for  the  player,  she  was  fairly  pale  with 
excitement ;  but  her  head  was  clear  and  her 
hand  steady.  She  paused  an  instant,  poising 
her  racquet.  She  observed  that  Granton 
stood  near  the  middle  of  his  court.  With  a 
quick  step  she  moved  to  the  very  outer  cor 
ner  of  her  own  and  sent  a  swift  ball  sharply 
under  her  opponent's  left  hand. 

"  Game ;  love  set,"  called  the  scorer. 
"  Sets  two  to  one  in  favor  of  Miss  Mork." 

And,  amid  what  for  Maugus  was  a  really 
astonishing  round  of  applause,  Betty,  flushed 
but  triumphant,  walked  to  the  net  to  shake 
hands  with  her  vanquished  lover. 


128  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 


V. 

IT  was  astonishing  how  humble  and  for 
giving  her  victory  made  Mistress  Betty.  She 
was  troubled  with  the  fear  that  she  had  been 
unmaidenly,  that  she  had  hurt  Granton's  feel 
ings  and  alienated  his  friendship  forever,  with 
a  dozen  more  scruples  quite  as  absurd  and 
irrational. 

She  escaped  as  quickly  as  possible  from 
her  friends  and  their  congratulations,  and 
hurried  to  her  room  on  the  pretext  of  dress 
ing  for  supper.  There  she  cooled  her  hot 
cheeks,  burning  with  exercise  and  excitement, 
and  looking  ruefully  at  her  image  in  the 
mirror,  shook  her  head  reproachfully  at  the 
counterfeit  presentment  as  at  one  who  had 
beguiled  her  into  misdoing. 

After  supper  she  was  sitting  rather  gloomily 
in  a  retired  corner  of  the  piazza,  when  the 
defeated  Granton  approached.  The  reaction 
from  the  afternoon's  excitement  had  rendered 
the  young  lady's  spirit  rather  subdued,  but 
she  rallied  at  sight  of  the  new-comer. 

"  Good-evening,"  he  said.  "  Were  you  en 
joying  the  sweets  of  victory?" 

"  I  was  enjoying  the  sweets  of  solitude," 
she  returned,  a  little  pointedly. 


SAUCY  BETTY  MORK.  129 

Granton  laughed. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  remarked,  taking  a  vacant 
chair  near  her,  "  that  I  need  not  apologize  for 
my  ill-judged  remarks  some  time  since  about 
girls  and  tennis.  My  afternoon's  punishment 
ought  to  pass  as  a  sufficient  expiation." 

"  Expiation  is  always  a  matter  of  feeling." 

"  Oh,  as  to  that,  I  felt  I  had  enough,  I 
assure  you,"  he  laughed.  "  It  may  not  be 
gallant  to  say  so,  but  it  was  really  horrible  to 
be  beaten  out  of  my  boots  by  a  lady  in  broad 
daylight,  in  face  of  all  Maugus  assembled." 

Betty  was  silent.  The  remorseful  feeling 
rose  again  in  her  breast.  Granton  spoke 
lightly  enough,  but  she  wondered  if  she  had 
not  humiliated  him  terribly.  She  played 
nervously  with  her  fan,  hardly  knowing  how 
to  phrase  it,  yet  longing  to  offer  something 
in  the  way  of  apology. 

"  I  hope,"  she  began,  "  I  hope  — 

Nat  regarded  her  closely  in  the  fading  light 
as  she  hesitated,  and  by  some  happy  inspira 
tion  divined  her  softened  mood.  He  noted 
the  downcast  eyes  and  troubled  face.  With 
out  fully  comprehending  her  mental  state,  he 
yet  found  courage  to  move  a  trifle  nearer. 

"  Yes?  "  he  queried,  laying  his  fingers  upon 
the  arm  of  her  chair. 

Betty  looked  at  the  hand  which  had  ap- 
9 


130  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

preached  so  near,  and  a  sudden  trepidation 
thrilled  her.  She  opened  and  closed  her  fan 
nervously,  but  made  no  attempt  to  finish  her 
broken  sentence. 

"  Betty,"  her  lover  said,  leaning  forward, 
"  now  I  am  in  the  dust  at  your  feet,  you  must 
at  least  let  me  speak.  You  Ve  kept  out  of 
my  way  so  for  the  last  two  or  three  weeks 
that  I  was  afraid  you  disliked  me ;  but  now  I 
understand  where  you  have  been.  You  know 
how  much  I  care  for  you." 

Still  she  did  not  raise  her  eyes. 

"Don't  you  care  for  me?"  he  pleaded. 
"  I  Ve  been  in  love  with  you  all  summer. 
You  must  have  known  it." 

He  paused  again,  yet  she  did  not  answer, 
though  a  great  tide  of  joy  thrilled  her  whole 
being.  Her  lover  seized  both  her  hands  and 
bent  down  until  his  cheek  almost  touched 
hers. 

"  Will  you  marry  me,  Betty?  " 

All  her  wilfulness  and  sauciness  flashed  in 
her  eyes  as  she  lifted  her  glance  at  last  to  his 
and  answered. 

"  I  wouldn't  if  I  hadn't  beaten  this  after 
noon." 

With  which  implied  consent  he  seemed 
perfectly  satisfied. 


MRS.    FRUFFLES    IS   AT   HOME. 


MRS.    FRUFFLES   IS  AT   HOME. 

IN  answer  to  the  announcement  that  Mrs.  Ste 
phen  Morgan  Fruffles  will,  on  the  afternoon  of 
January  27,  be  at  home  from  four  to  seven,  all  the 
world  —  with  the  exception  of  her  husband,  who 
keeps  significantly  out  of  the  house,  and  at  his  club 
finds  such  solace  as  is  possible  under  the  circum 
stances —  has  assembled  to  celebrate  that  rare  and 
exciting  event. 

The  parlors  are  thronged  almost  to  suffocation  ; 
the  air  is  warm,  and  laden  with  a  hundred  odors, 
which  combine  to  make  it  well-nigh  unbreathable  ; 
the  constant  babble  of  conversation  goes  on  with 
the  steady  click-clack  of  a  mill-wheel,  and  several 
hundred  people  persistently  talk  without  saying 
anything  whatever. 

Mrs.  Chumley  Jones  is  there,  in  a  most  effective  • 
costume  of  garnet  plush,  adorned  with  some  sort 
of  long-haired  black  fur.  She  is  conscious  of  being 
perfectly  well  dressed,  of  being  the  best-known 
woman  in  the  parlors,  and  most  of  all  is  she  now, 
as  always,  conscious  of  being  the  one  and  only 
Mrs.  Chumley  Jones.  Soothed  and  sustained  by 
an  unfaltering  trust  in  all  these  good  things,  she 
moves  slowly  through  the  rooms,  or  stands  at  some 
convenient  coign  of  vantage,  dropping  a  word  to 


134  BOOK   a  NINE    TALES. 

this  one  and  to  that,  with  just  the  right  differences 
of  manner  fitted  to  the  degrees  of  the  people 
whom  she  addresses. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Truffles,"  she  remarks  to  the 
hostess,  "  you  do  always  have  such  enchanting 
receptions  !  " 

'•  Oh,  thank  you,  dear  Mrs.  Jones,"  responds  the 
other,  fully  aware  what  is  expected  of  her  ;  "  I  wish 
I  could  begin  to  have  anything  so  charming  as 
your  Fridays." 

"  Oh,  so  kind  of  you  to  say  so,"  murmurs  Mrs. 
Jones,  with  the  expressive  shake  of  the  head  proper 
to  the  sentiment  and  the  occasion. 

Then  she  passes  on  to  her  duty  elsewhere. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Jones?"  the  voice  of 
Ferdinand  Maunder  says  at  her  side.  "  Is  n't  it  a 
lovely  day  ?  It  is  really  like  a  Roman  winter ; 
don't  you  think  so?" 

"  Yes,  it  really  is,  Mr.  Maunder." 

"  Yes,  that 's  what  I  Ve  been  saying  to  myself  all 
.day." 

"It  is  so  much  nicer  of  you  to  say  it  to  me." 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Jones,  you  are  always  so  clever  at 
turning  things." 

They  smile  at  each  other  with  perfect  and  well- 
bred  inanity  for  a  second,  and  then  Fred  Lasceet 
slips  in  between  them. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Jones?  " 

"Oh,  how  do  you  do,  Mr.  Lasceet?  It  is  ever 
so  long  since  I  have  seen  you." 


MRS  FRUFFLES  IS  AT  HOME.  135 

"  So  good  of  you  to  think  it  long.  I  am  sure  it 
seems  an  age  to  me." 

Mr.  Maunder  having  meanwhile  glided  through 
the  crowd  with  an  eel-like  elusiveness,  Mrs.  Chum- 
ley  Jones  is  left  with  a  remark  upon  which  to  form 
her  conversation  for  the  afternoon. 

"  We  have  had  such  a  strange  winter  ;  don't  you 
think  so,  Mr.  Lasceet  ?  It  is  really  like  a  Roman 
winter." 

"  It  really  is  ;  though  I  should  n't  have  thought 
of  it.  You  are  always  so  clever  in  thinking  of 
things,  Mrs.  Jones." 

"  You  are  a  sad  flatterer,  Mr.  Lasceet." 

Mr.  Lasceet  endeavors  to  look  very  sly  and  cun 
ning,  and  while  he  gives  his  mind  to  this  endeavor 
another  slips  into  his  place. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Jones?"  says  Percival 
Drummond. 

"  Oh,  how  do  you  do,  Mr.  Drummond  ?  I 
have  n't  seen  you  for  ever  so  long." 

Mr.  Lasceet  melts  into  the  swaying  background, 
and  is  seen  no  more. 

"  It  really  is  not  nice  of  you  to  say  so,  Mrs. 
Jones,"  is  Mr.  Drummond's  response,  "when  I 
took  you  in  to  dinner  at  Mrs.  Tiger's  night  before 
last." 

"  Oh,  dear  me  ;  how  stupid  of  me  !  I  really 
fear  I  am  losing  my  mind.  It  is  the  weather,  I 
think.  It  is  so  like  a  Roman  winter,  don't  you 
think?" 


136  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

"Yes,  it  is  a  little." 

"  Oh,  ever  so  much.  How  do  you  do,  dear 
Mrs.  Gray?  I  am  delighted  to  see  you.  I  was 
just  saying  to  Mr.  Drummond  that  it  seems  to  me 
that  our  winter  this  year  is  so  much  like  a  Roman 
winter.  Did  you  ever  think  of  it?" 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  I  have  thought  of  nothing  else 
all  winter.  Why,  it  is  just  such  a  day  as  it  was  one 
afternoon  two  years  ago  when  I  was  in  Rome." 

"Were  you  in  Rome  year  before  last?"  Mr. 
Drummond  inquires,  with  the  air  of  one  to  whom 
the  answer  of  the  question  is  of  the  most  vital 
importance,  although  he  asks  only  for  the  sake  of 
being  silent  no  longer. 

"  Yes,  we  went  in  October  and  stayed  until 
March.  You  remember,  Mrs.  Jones,  that  we  dined 
with  you  the  very  day  before  we  sailed." 

"  Why,  yes,  so  you  did.  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  it.  Are  you  going?" 

"  Yes,  I  really  must  go.  I  have  three  places 
more  to  call  before  I  go  home,  and  we  are  going 
out  to  dinner." 

"  I  shall  see  you  if  you  dine  at  the  Muchmen's." 

"  Oh,  are  you  to  be  there?     How  lovely." 

"  I  hope  to  take  one  of  you  in,"  Mr.  Drum 
mond  says,  with  a  smile  of  the  most  brilliant 
vacuity. 

"Are  you  to  be  there,  too?  Why,  it  will  be 
quite  a  reunion.  An  revoir." 

The  crowd  swallows  Mrs.  Gray,  and  at  the  same 


MRS.   FRUFFLES  IS  AT  HOME.  137 

moment  Mr.  Drummond  is  seized  upon  by  a  sharp- 
looking  elderly  female,  who  drags  him  off  as  if  she 
were  conveying  him  into  some  sly  corner  where 
she  may  devour  him  undisturbed.  Mrs.  Jones 
turns  to  move  toward  the  other  parlor. 

At  that  moment  she  is  accosted  by  a  lady  of  an 
appearance  so  airy,  both  as  regards  dress  and  man 
ner,  as  to  suggest  that  she  is  a  mislaid  member  of 
some  ballet  troupe. 

"Why,  how  do  you  do?"  she  cried,  with  a 
vivacity  quite  in  keeping  with  her  appearance. 
"  My  dear  Mrs.  Jones,  I  have  n't  seen  you  since  I 
got  back  from  Europe." 

"  Why,  Susie  Throgmorton,  is  it  really  you  ?  I 
did  n't  know  you  were  home." 

"  That  shows  what  an  unimportant  person  I 
am." 

"  Oh,  I  knew  you  came  home  from  Europe,  but 
I  thought  you  were  still  in  New  York." 

"  Oh,  I  only  went  on  to  see  Aunt  Dinah  for  a 
couple  of  days.  I  got  caught  in  the  most  awful 
storm  you  ever  saw." 

"  But  the  winter,"  Mrs.  Chumley  Jones  observes, 
with  an  air  of  freshness  and  conviction  which  is 
something  beautiful  to  see,  "  has  been  as  mild  as 
a  Roman  winter  most  of  the  time." 

"  Yes,  it  has  been  like  a  Roman  winter." 

The  crowd  separates  them  and  they  go  their 
several  ways,  each  repeating  that  it  is  like  a  Roman 
winter ;  but  meanwhile  the  same  observation  is 


138  A   BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

being  scattered  broadcast  by  Mr.  Maunder,  Mr. 
Lasceet,  and  Mr.  Dmmmond,  so  that,  although 
•  there  are  a  good  many  people  in  the  room,  they 
are  in  a  fair  way  of  being  all  informed  that  the 
winter  strongly  resembles  that  of  Rome  ;  a  state 
ment  which,  if  true,  may  be  regarded  as  of  the 
highest  importance. 

It  is  not  until,  entering  the  tea  room,  Mrs. 
Chumley  Jones  encounters  Mrs.  Quagget,  who 
talks  more  rapidly  than  any  other  known  woman, 
that  she  has  anybody  take  the  words  out  of  her 
mouth  ;  but  before  she  can  tell  Mrs.  Quagget  that 
it  is  like  a  Roman  winter,  Mrs.  Quagget  has  im 
parted  that  interesting  information  to  her.  It  is 
all  one,  however,  since  something  has  been  said 
by  one  of  them ;  and  Mrs.  Chumley  Jones  is  not 
in  the  least  disconcerted.  She  still  clings  to  the 
convenient  remark,  as  she  did  not  take  the  trouble 
to  bring  one  with  her,  and  this  one  suits  her  pur 
pose  admirably. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Tarrart,"  she  exclaims,  as  she 
comes  upon  a  wintry  young  lady  of  advanced  stages 
of  maturity,  "  how  do  you  do  ?  I  have  n't  seen  you 
for  an  age." 

"Why,  how  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Jones?"  is  the 
response,  delivered  in  a  manner  so  emphatic  as  to 
convey  the  impression  that  the  reason  why  Miss 
Tarrart  is  so  odd-looking  is  because  she  has  put  so 
much  energy  into  her  greetings  of  her  friends. 
"  I  am  enchanted  to  see  you.  When  do  you  go 


MRS.  FRUFFLES  IS  AT  HOME.  139 

abroad?     I  am  sure  one  might  almost  think  they 
were  abroad  in  this  weather.     It  is  so  —  ' 

"  Yes,"  Mrs.  Jones  interposes,  taking  the  words 
out  of  her  mouth  ;  "  I  was  just  saying  to  Mrs. 
Quagget  that  this  is  really  quite  like  a  Roman 
winter ;  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 
,  "Yes,  it  is,"  Miss  Tarrart  answers,  with  the  air 
of  one  who  has  been  beaten  by  unfair  means.  "  It 
is  like  a  Roman  winter." 

"  Why  don't  you  come  and  see  me,  Miss  Tar 
rart?  It  really  is  not  kind  of  you  to  stay  away  so 
long." 

"  I  am  coming  very  soon  ;  and  you  must  come 
and  see  me." 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  I  am  coming.  Do  you  know  which 
way  Mrs.  Fruffles  is?  I  really  must  go." 

"  She  is  in  the  other  room." 

"  Well,  good-bye,  dear." 

"Good-bye." 

The  two  separate,  each  thinking  how  fast  the 
other  is  growing  old.  Mrs.  Chumley  Jones,  feeling 
that  she  has  now  done  her  whole  duty,  does  not 
even  take  the  trouble  any  more  to  tell  people  that 
the  winter  is  like  a  Roman  one.  She  merely 
makes  her  way  to  the  hostess. 

"  Good  bye,"  she  says.  "One  always  has  such 
lovely  times  at  your  house,  Mrs.  Fruffles." 

"  Oh,  it  is  so  kind  of  you  to  say  so,  when  your 
Fridays  are  so  much  pleasanter." 

"  It  is  so  kind  of  you  to  say  so,  my  dear  Mrs. 


140  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

Fruffles ;  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  cannot  agree 
with  you." 

"  It  is  the  weather  partly,"  the  hostess  observes  ; 
"  so  many  people  have  said  to  me  this  afternoon 
that  it  seems  like  a  Roman  winter." 

"Yes,  I  was  just  thinking  of  that  very  thing. 
Well,  good-bye,  my  dear.  Be  sure  and  come  in  on 
Friday." 

"  Oh,  I  would  n't  miss  it  for  anything." 

"  Good-bye." 

"Good-bye." 

And  as  far  as  Mrs.  Chumley  Jones  is  concerned, 
Mrs.  Stephen  Morgan  Fruffles  ceases  to  be  "At 
Home." 


Cale  tfyt  f  ourtf). 


JOHN   VANTINE. 


JOHN   VANTINE. 

HE  relation  of  so  improbable  a  story 
as  the  following  is  to  be  justified 
only  by  its  truth.  The  hero  is  a 
New  York  lawyer,  sufficiently  well 
known  to  render  the  mention  of  his  name, 
were  it  allowable  to  give  it,  an  ample  guar 
antee  for  the  entire  trustworthiness  of  any 
statement  he  might  make ;  and  it  is  perhaps 
to  be  regretted  that  his  invincible  —  albeit 
natural  —  dislike  of  publicity  prevents  the 
production  of  evidence  which  would  at  least 
establish  the  fact  that  his  own  belief  in  the 
appearances  by  which  he  was  visited  is  com 
plete  and  sincere. 

Mr.  Vantine,  although  a  handsome  and 
intellectual-looking  man,  is  by  no  means  a 
person  whose  appearance  would  in  any  way 
single  him  out  as  likely  to  be  the  hero  of 
marvellous  adventures.  He  is  neither  espe 
cially  imaginative  nor  credulous.  He  is  sim 
ply  a  clear-headed  and  shrewd  business  man, 
such  as  are  nourished  in  the  atmosphere  of 
New  York,  of  all  places  in  the  wide  world, 


144  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

perhaps,  the  one  least  likely  to  nourish  fancy 
or  belief  in  the  unseen.  To  see  him  going 
steadily  about  his  affairs  down  town,  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  any  observer,  however 
keen,  would  look  on  him  as  the  probable 
object  of  remarkable  hallucinations,  or  of 
experiences  so  far  from  the  ordinary  course 
of  human  life,  as  sure  to  be  classed  as  such 
by  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a  hundred. 

Yet  John  Vantine,  of  whom  most  of  his 
acquaintances  would  have  said  that  he  was  a 
commonplace  man  of  business,  lived  for  years 
a  double  life,  into  which  he  did  not  venture 
to  initiate  even  his  wife,  with  whom  he  lived 
on  terms  of  the  warmest  sympathy  and  closest 
confidence. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  his  wedding-day 
that  certain  impressions,  which  in  a  vague 
shape  had  for  years  haunted  him,  first  took 
form  so  definite  that  he  could  not  but  think 
of  them  as  something  having  a  tangibility  of 
their  own,  different  though  it  was  from  that 
of  the  ordinary  things  which  surround  com 
mon  human  life.  He  was  married  at  the 
home  of  his  bride,  a  pretty  village  in  western 
Massachusetts.  There  being  no  hotel  of  even 
decent  comfort  in  the  place,  Vantine  had 
passed  the  night  at  the  inn  of  a  town  half  a 
dozen  miles  away,  whence  he  drove  over  in 


JOHN   y AN  TINE.  145 

the  dewy  June  morning  to  the  scene  of  his 
marriage. 

As  he  passed  along  between  the  fields 
starred  with  daisies,  reflecting  in  blissful 
mood  upon  the  beauty  of  the  day  and  the 
happiness  it  brought  to  him,  his  horse  came 
suddenly  and  without  warning  to  a  standstill. 
John  instinctively  gathered  up  the  reins  to 
start  the  animal,  when  to  his  unspeakable 
amazement  he  perceived  a  man  in  an  Eastern 
dress  of  great  splendor  standing  beside  the 
open  carriage.  PI  is  robes  were  of  the  richest 
stuffs,  while  jewels  sparkled  from  every  part 
of  his  attire.  Pie  was  standing  apparently 
upon  a  small  rug,  a  circumstance  which  at 
the  moment  impressed  Vantine  more  than  his 
mysterious  presence.  The  stranger  saluted 
the  young  man  with  the  most  profound  obei 
sances,  and  it  was  only  after  repeated  genu 
flections  that  he  spoke.  When  he  did  address 
Vantine,  it  was  in  a  language  of  which  the 
latter  did  not  even  know  the  name,  although 
in  some  astonishing  way  he  still  comprehended 
what  was  said. 

"  Great  Master,"  the  stranger  greeted  him, 
"  will  you  receive  an  embassy  to  congratulate 
you  on  your  nuptials?  " 

Of  course  I  cannot  pretend  here  or  else 
where  to  give  the  exact  words  in  which  my 


146  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

friend  was  addressed.  It  was  some  years 
before  he  confided  the  story  to  me,  and  al 
though  I  have  endeavored  to  set  the  words 
down  exactly  as  he  gave  them,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  he  made  no  attempt  at 
literal  verbal  accuracy. 

That  a  young  man  who  had  been  nourished 
amid  the  hard  commonplaces  of  New  York 
life  should  be  astounded  by  an  address  of 
this  sort  was  only  natural.  That  Vantine  did 
not  lose  his  head  altogether  was  probably 
due  to  certain  vague  and  premonitory  expe 
riences  which  he  never  defined  very  clearly, 
alluding  to  them  as  "  passing  fancies,"  "  neb 
ulous  impressions,"  and  by  other  phrases  too 
general  to  convey  exact  meaning  to  my  mind. 
On  the  present  occasion,  however,  beyond  a 
rather  prolonged  silence  before  he  answered 
his  interlocutor,  he  seems  to  have  behaved 
much  as  might  a  man  stopped  on  the  street 
by  an  ordinary  acquaintance.  When  he 
spoke,  he  simply  and  laconically  answered 
"  Yes;  "  and,  as  he  did  so,  he  swept  with  his 
eye  the  wide  horizon  which  the  nature  of  the 
country  laid  open  to  him,  perceiving  nowhere 
sign  of  anything  unusual. 

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  monosyllable 
left  his  lips  when  he  saw  upon  the  woodside 
an  enormous  oriental  rug  cover  the  green- 


JOHN   VAN  TINE.  147 

sward,  and  instantly  upon  it  stood  a  numer 
ous  company,  dressed  in  the  most  splendid 
robes,  saluting,  and  uttering  stately  but  most 
enthusiastic  congratulations.  In  this,  as  in  all 
other  instances  in  which  my  friend  has  seen 
figures,  the  lower  portions  have  appeared 
first. 

John  sat  in  dignified  and  very  probably 
half-stupefied  silence  during  this  extraordi 
nary  scene,  and  suddenly,  without  warning, 
the  whole  pageant  vanished  into  the  limbo 
from  which  it  had  come.  He  was  once  more 
alone  upon  a  country  road,  in  the  bright  sun 
shine  of  a  June  forenoon.  It  was  his  wed 
ding  morning,  and,  the  vision  or  whatever  it 

O  O  ' 

might  properly  be  called  having  vanished, 
there  was  obviously  nothing  to  do  but  to 
drive  on  and  be  married,  —  a  course  of  action 
which  he  carried  out  to  the  letter. 

I  have  fancied,  although  it  is  a  point  upon 
which  I  am  doubtful,  that  John  made  some 
beginning  of  a  confidence  to  his  bride  during 
the  honeymoon  of  this  extraordinary  occur 
rence,  and  that  the  levity  with  which  she 
received  his  first  suggestions  prevented  his 
going  further  in  his  disclosures.  The  reason 
is,  however,  of  no  great  consequence,  but  at 
least  the  fact  is  that  he  did  not  tell  her.  He 
gave  a  good  deal  of  thought  to  the  matter, 


148  A   BOOK   a  NINE    TALES. 

corresponded  with  the  Psychical  Society,  of 
London,  not  relating  his  own  experience,  but 
endeavoring  to  learn  of  a  parallel  case.  He 
had,  too,  some  communication  with  the  The- 
osophical  Society,  of  London,  and  even  with 
the  parent  society,  of  Madras ;  and  he  at  one 
time  contemplated  making  a  confidant  of 
Madame  Blavatsky,  concerning  whom,  at  that 
time,  the  European  papers  were  full  of  mar 
vellous  talcs. 

He  docs  not  seem,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to 
gather  from  what  he  has  told  me,  to  have  hit 
upon  any  theory  which  afforded  him  a  clue 
to  the  mystery  of  his  own  case;  and  just  as 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the  whole 
was  a  mere  optical  delusion,  he  had  a  second 
visitation. 

He  was  in  a  Fifth  Avenue  car  on  the  ele 
vated  road,  returning  home  at  night.  The 
car  was  compactly  filled,  but  before  him,  as 
he  sat  facing  the  middle  of  the  car,  was  an 
open  space,  two  or  three  feet  square.  Look 
ing  up,  as  the  train  started  after  stopping 
at  the  Twenty-third  street  station,  John  saw 
standing  before  him  the  same  oriental  figure 
which  had  greeted  him  on  his  wedding  day. 
The  stranger's  face  beamed  with  joy,  and  he 
scarcely  waited  to  finish  his  profound  salu 
tation  before  exclaiming,  "  It  is  a  propitious 


JOHN   I/ AN  TINE.  149 

hour,  Great  Master.  The  young  prince  is  a 
pearl  beyond  price." 

Vantine's  first  instinct  was  to  look  at  his 
neighbors,  to  see  whether  they  too  beheld 
the  apparition,  if  apparition  it  were.  The 
man  on  his  right  was  looking  up  from  his 
newspaper  with  the  air  of  one  who  had  heard 
the  strange  words  and  wished  to  discover 
whence  they  came.  The  man  on  the  left 
was  gazing  at  Vantine  with  an  expression  of 
bewildered  curiosity.  John  turned  his  eyes 
again  to  the  spot  where  his  strange  visitor 
had  been. 

The  place  was  vacant. 

My  friend,  in  relating  this,  blamed  himself 
severely  that  he  had  allowed  a  natural  diffi 
dence  to  prevent  his  asking  his  neighbors 
whether  they  had  seen  the  "  Great  Mogul," 
as  he  began  facetiously  to  dub  the  phantom 
in  his  thoughts.  "  But,"  he  added,  "  nobody 
likes  to  be  taken  for  a  raving  idiot,  even  by 
a  stranger.  They  certainly  looked  as  if  they 
had  seen  the  figure,  but  I  could  n't  make 
up  my  mind  to  ask." 

Reaching  home,  John  found  that  his  wife 
had  been  prematurely  but  safely  delivered 
of  a  lusty  son.  The  messenger  sent  to  his 
office  had  missed  him,  and  at  the  time  of 
the  appearance  in  the  car,  he  declares  that 


150  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

he  was  not  consciously  even  thinking  of  his 
wife's  condition  at  all. 

When  he  had  time  to  collect  his  thoughts 
after  this  second  visitation,  Vantine  came 
firmly  to  the  resolution  that  if  he  were  ever 
favored  with  a  third  sight  of  the  "  Great 
Mogul,"  he  would  at  least  endeavor  to  dis 
cover  whether  the  phantom  were  appreciable 
by  the  sense  of  touch.  He  read  much  about 
"  astral  appearances,"  and  a  good  many  more 
things  of  the  sort,  of  which  my  own  knowl 
edge  is  too  limited  to  permit  my  writing  at 
all.  He  formed  a  hundred  theories,  and  he 
began  to  get  somewhat  confused,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  in  regard  to  his  identity. 
He  was  half  convinced  that  by  some  mis- 
working  of  the  law  of  re-incarnation,  the 
spirit  of  some  Eastern  potentate  had  been 
put  into  his  body. 

"  Or,"  said  he,  with  a  whimsicality  which 
was  evidently  deeply  tinctured  with  a  serious 
feeling,  "  that  I  had  got  into  somebody's  else 
body.  If  I  had  known  any  possible  way  of 
stopping  the  thing,  it  would,  n't  have  been  so 
bad ;  but  to  have  the  '  Great  Mogul '  pop 
up  like  a  jack-in-a-box,  without  any  warning, 
was  taking  me  at  a  disadvantage  that  I  think 
decidedly  unfair." 

Not    to    lengthen    unnecessarily  a    simple 


JOHN    YANTINE.  151 

story,  the  speculations  and  investigations  of 
Vantine  may  be  passed  over,  and  the  narra 
tive  confined  to  the  bare  facts. 

It  was  when  John's  boy  was  about  two 
months  old  that  the  embassy  which  had 
greeted  John  upon  his  wedding  morning,  or 
one  closely  resembling  it,  put  in  an  appear 
ance  in  honor  of  the  child's  birth.  The  child 
and  its  mother  were  taking  their  first  drive, 
and  Vantine  came  home  to  luncheon  rather 
earlier  than  usual,  to  find  them  out.  He  went 
into  the  library,  but  had  scarcely  closed  the 
door  behind  him,  when  the  whole  gorgeous 
company  of  his  wedding  morning  were  be 
fore  him,  and  so  real  did  they  seem  to  him 
that  John  entirely  forgot  his  intention  of 
grasping  the  "  Great  Mogul "  by  the  arm,  to 
convince  himself  of  the  reality  of  that  per 
sonage.  The  company  overflowed  with  con 
gratulations,  rather  florid  to  my  friend's 
occidentally  trained  taste,  but  doubtless  poet 
ical  in  the  extreme  from  an  oriental  point  of 
view.  Vantine  was  afterward  amused  and  a 
little  surprised  to  remember  how  much  as  a 
matter  of  course  he  took  the  adulation  offered 
him,  and  the  ease  with  which  he  played  the 
role  of  "  Great  Master." 

But  suddenly  he  became  so  thoroughly 
amazed  that  all  power  of  speech  or  motion 


152  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

seemed  to  forsake  him.  In  the  arms  of  the 
"  Great  Mogul"  he  perceived  his  baby  boy, 
or  an  image  that  seemed  to  be  the  child,  and 
to  the  babe  the  brilliant  company  were  kneel 
ing  and  swearing  fealty.  The  whole  cere 
mony  occupied  about  half  an  hour,  at  the  encl^ 
of  which  time  Vantine  found  himself  once- 
more  alone,  and  upon  going  downstairs  he 
met  his  wife  and  the  nurse  with  the  baby  re 
turning  from  their  drive. 

"  He's  slept  like  a  dormouse,"  Mrs.  Van- 
tine  said,  in  answer  to  her  husband's  inquiry. 
"  I  tried  to  rouse  him  once,  but  he  would  n't 
wake.  I  was  half  frightened,  but  he  seems 
all  right  now." 

As  they  entered  the  parlor  the  maid  came 
to  inquire  if  Mr.  Vantine  had  brought  com 
pany  to  luncheon,  as  she  had  heard  voices 
in  the  library,  —  a  circumstance  which  proved 
that  the  sound  of  the  voices  of  his  ghostly  vis 
itors  was  audible  to  other  ears  than  his  own. 

John  vainly  wished  that  the  baby,  healthy, 
awake  and  cooing  now,  could  tell  whether 
dreams  or  strange  experiences  had  troubled 
its  sleep  while  its  father  had  seen  its  image; 
but  that  is  a  point  upon  which  he  has  never 
received  enlightenment. 

It  was  one  winter  night  when  the  baby  was 
six  months  old  that  the  "  Great  Mogul " 


JOHN   VAN  TINE.  153 

presented  himself  again.  My  friend  had  been 
taking  a  bath,  and  was  dressing  for  bed  when 
the  figure  of  his  visions  appeared,  and  with 
every  mark  of  terror  and  consternation  pros 
trated  itself  at  his  feet. 

"  Great  Master,"  it  gasped  in  the  usual  for 
mula,  "  pardon  your  slave's  intrusion.  The 
enemy  are  upon  us.  They  —  " 

With  this  sentence  still  unfinished,  the 
vision  faded  away  in  an  instant,  as  if  some 
unforeseen  catastrophe  in  whatever  region  it 
came  from  had  suddenly  recalled  the  eidolon, 
or  projected  presence,  or  whatever  the  thing 
might  be. 

More  confounded  and  disturbed  than 
ever,  my  friend  retired  to  bed,  but  he  was  too 
much  excited  to  sleep.  He  had  much  the 
feeling  that  one  fancies  a  prince  to  have  over 
whose  heritage  distant  armies  are  contending, 
while  he  in  forced  inaction  awaits  the  result. 
No  clue  had  been  given  which  enabled  him 
to  reach  a  solution  of  the  mystery  that  in 
volved  him,  and  nothing  further  transpired 
during  the  night  to  render  matters  any 
plainer. 

On  the  following  afternoon  he  was  obliged 
to  start  for  Boston  on  business.  As  he  was 
elbowing  his  way  through  the  crowd  in  the 
Grand  Central  station,  he  heard  at  his  ear  the 


154  ^  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

well  known  voice  of  the  "  Great  Mogul," 
speaking  as  usual  in  the  unknown  tongue 
which  Vantine  understood,  yet  the  identity  of 
which  he  had  never  established.  There  was 
no  visible  appearance  this  time,  and  the  voice, 
although  distinctly  audible,  seemed  to  come 
from  a  great  distance. 

"  Great  Master,"  the  voice  said,  "  they  are 
beheading  me.  All  is  lost." 

"  It  would  be  some  comfort,"  John  Vantine 
said,  rather  irritably,  when  he  confided  this 
strange  story  to  me,  "  to  know  what  was  lost. 
It  would  have  been  uncommonly  civil  of  the 
'  Great  Mogul'  to  be  a  little  more  definite  in 
his  information.  If  the  poor  fellow  lost  his 
head  in  my  service  I  am  profoundly  grateful, 
of  course ;  but  precious  little  good  does  it  do 
me.  Do  you  think  the  Psychical  Society 
would  undertake  the  job  of  discovering  in 
what  part  of  the  universe  I  am  rightfully 
dubbed  the  Great  Master  and  that  young 
rascal  in  the  nursery  is  a  prince !  Unless 
they  can  do  something,  I  'm  afraid  I  shall 
be  a  half-starved  New  York  lawyer  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter." 

To  which  I  had  nothing  satisfactory  to 
answer. 


THE   RADIATOR. 


THE    RADIATOR. 

A   STUDY    IN   THE   MODERN   STYLE    OF   COLLOQUIAL 
FICTION. 

[Scene,  the  chamber  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Elision,  in  an 
apartment  hotel.  Time,  three  A.  M.  The  silence  of 
the  night  is  unbroken,  save  by  the  regular  breathing 
of 'the  sleepers,  until  suddenly,  from  the  steam  radi 
ator,  bursts  a  sound  like  the  discharge  of  a  battery  of 
forty-pound  guns '.] 

Mrs.  E.  (springing  up  in  bed]  Oh  !  eh  ?  what  is 
that  ? 

\_Her  husband  moves  uneasily  in  his  sleep,  but  does 
not  reply.  The  noise  of  the  sledge-hammer  score  of 
the  "  Anvil  Chorus  "  rings  out  from  the  radiator^} 

Mrs.  E.  George  !  George  !  Something  is  going 
to  happen  !  Do  wake  up,  or  we  shall  be  mur 
dered  in  our  sleep  ! 

Mr.  E.  (with  mingled  ferocity  and  amusement] 
There  is  small  danger  of  anybody's  being  murdered 
in  his  sleep,  my  dear,  where  you  are.  It 's  only 
that  confounded  radiator  ;  it 's  always  making  some 
sort  of  an  infernal  tumult.  It  can't  do  any  harm. 

Mrs.  E.   But  it  will  wake  baby. 

Mr.  E.  Well,  if  it  does,  the  nurse  can  get  him 
to  sleep  again,  I  suppose. 


158  A  BOOX  O    NINE   TALES. 

[From  the. room  adjoining  is  heard  a  clattering  din, 
as  if  all  the  kettles  and  pans  in  the  house  were  being 
tlirown  violently  across  tlie  floor.~\ 

Mrs.  E.  There  !  The  nursery  radiator  has  be 
gun.  I  must  go  and  get  baby. 

Mr.  E.  Let  baby  alone.  If  the  youngster  will 
sleep,  for  heaven's  sake  let  him.  The  steam-pipes 
make  noise  enough  for  this  time  of  night,  one 
would  think,  without  your  taking  the  trouble  to 
wake  baby. 

Mrs.  E.  (with  volumes  of  reproach  in  her  fotie) 
Your  own  little  baby  !  You  never  loved  him  as 
his  mother  does. 

[  The  disturbances  now  assume  the  likeness  to  a 
thoroughly  inebriated  drum  corps  practising  -upon 
sheet-iron  air-tight  stoves. .] 

Mr.  E.    Of  all  unendurable  rackets  — 

[A  sudden  and  sharp  boom  interrupts  him.  Mrs. 
Ellston  screams,  wJiile  her  husband  indulges  in  lan 
guage  which,  although  somewhat  inexcusably  forcible, 
is  yet  to  be  regarded  as  not  unnatural  under  the  cir 
cumstances-^ 

Mrs.  E.  Oh,  George,  don't  swear.  It  always 
seems  so  much  worse  to  swear  in  danger ;  like 
tempting  Providence  ;  and  I  know  there  's  going 
to  be  an  explosion  ! 

Mr.  E.  {severely*}  Don't  talk  nonsense  !  The 
engineer  has  gone  to  sleep  and  left  the  drafts  open, 
that 's  all.  Don't  be  so  absurd. 

{There  is  another  fusillade  f torn  the  radiator,  rein 
forced  by  the  reverberations  from  tlic  nursery,  tvhire 


THE  RADIATOR.  159 

a   regiment  of  artillery  seem   to   have   begun  target 
practice] 

Mrs.  E.  I  -will  go  and  get  my  baby  !  I  know  — 
Oh,  George,  just  hear  it  crash  !  Do  get  up  and 
put  the  screen  in  front  of  it ;  that  may  turn  off  the 
pieces  so  they  won't  come  this  way. 

Mr.  E.  {scornfully}    Pieces  of  what?     Noise? 

Mrs.  E.  How  can  you  make  fun?  If  the  en 
gineer  has  gone  to  sleep,  he  's  sure  to  blow  up  the 
whole  hotel.  I  "m  going  to  get  up  and  dress  myself, 
and  take  baby  over  to  mother's  ! 

Mr.  E.  (with  calm  but  cutting  irony}  At  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning?  Shall  you  walk,  or  call  a 
carriage  ? 

Mrs.  E.  (beginning  to  sob  in  a  dry  and  perfunc 
tory  fashion}  Oh,  you  are  too  cruel  !  You  are 
perfectly  heartless.  I  wonder  you  don't  take  that 
dear  little  innocent  baby  and  hold  him  between 
you  and  the  radiator  for  a  shield. 

Mr.  E.  That  might  be  a  good  scheme,  my  dear, 
only  the  little  beggar  would  probably  howl  so  that 
I  have  n't  really  the  moral  courage  to  wake  him. 

[  The  indignant  reply  of  Mrs.  E  listen  is  lost  in  the 
confused  sound  of  the  brays  of  a  drove  of  brazen  don 
keys,  which  appear  to  be  disporting  themselves  in  the 
radiator.  The  noise  of  mighty  rushing  waters,  the 
clanking  of  chains,  the  din  of  a  political  convention, 
the  characteristic  disturbances  of  a  hundred  factories 
and  machine-shops,  with  the  deafening  whirr  of  all 
the  elevated  railways  in  the  universe  follow  in  tnrn.~\ 

Mrs.  E.    I  will  go  and  get  my  baby,  and  I  will 


160  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

go  to  mother's  ;  and,  what  is  more,  we  will  never, 
never  come  back  ! 

Mr.  E.  Oh,  just  as  you  please  about  going,  my 
dear ;  only  you  know  that  if  you  desert  my  bed 
and  board,  the  law  gives  the  boy  to  me. 

Mrs.  E.  I  don't  believe  it 's  any  such  thing ; 
and  if  it  is,  it  is  because  men  made  the  law. 
Women  would  n't  take  a  baby  away  from  its 
mother. 

Mr.  E.  Have  what  theories  you  choose,  my 
dear ;  only  please  let  me  get  a  few  crumbs  of  sleep, 
now  the  radiator  has  had  the  mercy  to  subside. 

Mrs.  E.  You  are  a  brute,  and  I  won't  ever 
speak  to  you  again  ! 

\Shefirmly  assumes  a  stony  silence,  and  the  radi 
ator,  after  a  few  concluding  ejaculations  and  metallic 
objurgations,  also  relapses  into  comparative  stillness. 
Mr.  Elision's  breathing  begins  to  give  strong  indica 
tions  that  slumber  has  re-descended  upon  his  weary 
frame.] 

Mrs.  E.  (starting  up  with  the  inspiration  of  an 
entirely  new  and  startling  idea}  George  !  George  ! 
George  ! 

Mr.  E.  (with  less  good  humor  than  might  be 
desired)  Eh  ? 

Mrs.  E.  Was  n't  it  wonderful  for  baby  to  sleep 
through  it  all? 

Mr.  E.  {drowsily}  Yes ;  droll  little  beggar. 
His  mother  wasn't  in  the  nursery  to  wake  him, 
though. 


THE  RADIATOR.  l6l 

Mrs.  £.  You  don't  suppose  there  is  anything 
the  matter  with  him  ?  George  !  George,  I  say  ! 
you  don't  suppose  the  reason  he  sleeps  so  soundly 
is  because  he  's  sick? 

[  To  this  conundrum  Mr.  Ellston  offers  no  solution, 
and  equally  passes  in  silence  queries  in  regard  to  the 
probability  of  the  nurse's  being  awake,  alive,  well- 
disposed,  and  able  to  take  care  of  baby  in  case  of  emer 
gency.  Mrs.  Ellston  sighs  with  the  desperation  of 
long-suffering  anguish,  and  once  more  stillness  reigns 
in  tlie  chamber.  The  lady  again  arouses  herself, 
however,  from  an  apparently  sound  nap  to  ask,  in 
penetrating  tones,  — ] 

"  George,  do  you  think  it  will  begin  all  over 
again?  " 

( To  which  her  brutal  tvorscr  half  grumbles 
out  the  reply)  "  No  !  and  that 's  where  it  is  more 
endurable  than  a  woman." 

\_At  which  the  radiator  gives  a  chuckle  so  apt  as  to 
suggest  the  possession  of  a  sinister  consciousness  on 
the  part  of  that  noisy  instrument  of  torture.  Mrs. 
Ellston  groans,  with  the  discouraged  conviction  that 
she  is  but  one  against  two,  and  itpoti  this  theory  at 
length  consents  to  resume  her  interrupted  slumbers  J\ 


Cafe  tfje  fifty. 


MERE   MARCHETTE. 


MERE   MARCHETTE. 

I. 

T  was  half-past  eleven  of  a  hot  July 
day  in  Paris.  The  sunlight  lay 
over  the  whole  city  and  shone  no 
where  more  strongly  than  upon 
the  great  hospital  of  the  Salpetriere.  The 
hush  of  noon  brooded  over  all  the  place. 
Nobody  was  stirring  unless  forced  to  activity 
by  some  pressing  duty.  In  the  long  white 
wards  the  patients  were  asleep  or  lying  quiet 
in  exhaustion  under  the  burning  fervor  of  the 
summer  heat. 

Down  one  of  the  corridors,  where  it  seemed 
refreshingly  cool  after  the  warmth  of  the 
outer  air  from  which  he  had  come,  a  young 
man  was  passing.  His  step,  though  rapid, 
had  the  noiseless  quality  which  bespeaks 
familiarity  with  the  sick-room  and  the  hos 
pital.  His  figure  was  compact  and  nervous, 
his  glance  clear  and  keen.  Dr.  Jean  Lom- 
mel  was  one  of  the  house  physicians  of  the 


1 66  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

Salpetriere,  although  that  he  was  not  now 
making  his  regular  rounds  was  evident  from 
the  fact  that  entering  a  certain  ward  he 
passed  quickly  to  a  bed  near  the  middle  of 
it  without  stopping  at  any  of  the  others. 

On  the  bed  lay  an  old  woman.  Her  face 
was  one  which  showed  great  strength"  of 
character.  It  was  of  a  marked  peasant  type, 
and  for  all  its  innumerable  wrinkles,  its 
sunken  temples,  the  coarse  texture  of  its 
skin,  and  the  shrunken  lips  which  showed 
the  lack  of  teeth  behind  them,  it  was  full  of 
a  nobility  and  kindliness  which  no  ravages 
of  time  or  disease  could  wholly  hide.  The 
hair  that  straggled  in  thin  locks  from  beneath 
the  white  cap  was  hardly  less  snowy  than  the 
lawn  which  covered  it;  and  when  the  patient 
opened  her  sunken  eyes,  as  the  doctor 
stopped  beside  the  bed,  they  were  bright 
and  shining  with  a  lustre  which  was  not  all 
either  fever  or  anxiety.  Her  glance  was  one 
of  intense  and  pitiful  inquiry.  The  young 
man  touched  her  white  hair  with  the  tips  of 
his  long,  fine  fingers  in  a  pitying  caress  be 
fore  he  took  hold  of  the  withered  wrist, 
shrunken  and  marked  with  blue  veins,  that 
lay  outside  the  coverlid. 

"  In  an  hour,  Mere  Marchette,"  he  said, 
answering  her  look  —  "  in  an  hour  he  will  be 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  l6j 

here ;  keep  up  a  good  heart.  You  do  not 
suffer? " 

The  old  woman  feebly  shook  her  head. 
The  ghost  of  a  smile,  faint  but  full  of  happi 
ness,  shone  on  her  face.  She  did  not  speak, 
but  she  thanked  him  with  a  look  before  she 
closed  her  eyes  and  lay  motionless  as  before 
he  had  come. 

The  young  man  looked  at  her  a  moment, 
an  expression  of  pity  in  his  brown  eyes ;  then 
with  a  sigh  he  turned  away  and  moved  softly 
down  the  ward  again.  By  the  door  he  en 
countered  one  of  the  nurses,  who  had  risen 
and  come  forward  to  speak  with  him. 

"  Will  she  live,  M.  Lommel?  " 

"  Yes,"  the  doctor  answered.  "  She  has 
given  all  her  energies  for  days  to  keeping 
alive  till  her  grandson  gets  here.  It  is  very 
singular,"  he  went  on,  in  a  voice  of  low  dis 
tinctness  that  could  have  been  acquired  only 
in  sick-rooms,  "  how  her  instinct  has  taught 
her  to  save  her  strength.  She  neither  moves 
nor  speaks  ;  she  simply  lives." 

"  She  has  been  that  way,"  the  nurse  re 
turned,  "ever  since  we  told  her  that  Pierre 
was  coming.  Will  he  be  here  by  twelve?  " 

"  Not  till  half-past  twelve,"  Dr.  Lommel 
replied.  "  I  will  return  before  then." 

And  he  went  out  into  the  hot  sunshine. 


1 68  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 


II. 

EVERYBODY  connected  with  the  ward  of 
the  Salpetriere  wherein  she  was  had  a  kindly 
feeling  for  poor  old  Mere  Marchette.  The 
doctors  and  the  nurses  could  not  have  been 
more  kind  or  more  tender  had  she  been  of 
their  own  blood.  She  was  one  of  those  who 
always  win  affection.  She  was  so  patient,  so 
simple,  so  kindly.  She  was  a  peasant  woman 
from  Normandy,  who  had  in  her  old  age 
drifted  to  Paris  with  her  grandson  Pierre,  a 
lad  of  sixteen  years.  All  the  rest  of  the  fam 
ily  were  dead.  Pierre's  father  had  been  a 
soldier,  and  it  was  with  the  hope  of  securing 
a  pension  for  the  son  that  Mere  Marchette  had 
left  her  home  and  the  life  in  Normandy  she 
loved,  to  throw  herself  into  Paris  as  into  the 
sea.  The  dead  soldier,  however,  had  been 
mustered  out  before  the  malarial  fever,  con 
tracted  in  the  swamps  of  the  Landes,  had  de 
veloped  itself,  and  the  pension  could  not  be 
obtained.  The  disappointment  was  a  bitter 
one,  made  worse  by  the  fact  that  Mere  Mar 
chette  had  been  told  by  one  and  another  that 
the  claim  would  have  been  granted  had  the 
case  been  properly  managed.  The  poor  old 
creature  could  not  escape  a  feeling  of  self- 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  169 

blame  in  thinking  that  it  was  her  want  of 
keenness  which  had  deprived  Pierre  of  his 
pension.  Her  grandson  for  her  represented 
the  world,  and  to  him  she  devoted  all  her  en 
ergies.  She  toiled  for  him,  and  watched  and 
suffered  with  that  unselfish  egotism  possible 
only  to  the  old  and  lonely. 

Fortunately  Pierre  was  a  good  lad,  who 
returned  his  grandmother's  love  with  a  devo 
tion  hardly  less  complete  than  her  own. 
They  lived  together  in  two  attic  rooms, 
where  they  passed  the  evenings  sitting  in 
the  dark  and  talking  of  their  Normandy 
home.  They  recalled  the  past  and  built 
endless  air  castles  of  the  time  when  they 
should  be  able  to  return.  They  had  grand 
plans  of  repurchasing  the  old  cot  where  both 
of  them  had  been  born,  and  which  had  been 
lost  by  the  foreclosure  of  a  mortgage  after 
the  long  illness  of  Pierre's  father  had  ended. 
They  were  never  tired  of  talking  of  what 
they  would  do  then,  and  of  devising  little 
ways  in  which  the  worn-out  old  farm  might 
be  made  more  profitable.  They  remained 
as  truly  children  of  the  soil  as  if  they  had 
been  still  in  Normandy  instead  of  in  their 
attic  in  the  midst  of  Pan's. 

In  the  daytime  Mere  Marchette  went  out 
to  do  work  as  charwoman,  while  Pierre  had 


1 70  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

been  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  a  place  as 
assistant  in  a  little  grocery  in  Rue  M.  le 
Prince.  It  was  in  connection  with  this 
that  Pierre  gave  his  grandmother  the  only 
real  grief  he  ever  caused  her  while  they  were 
together.  Suddenly  the  boy  began  to  stay 
away  in  the  evening,  and  when  Mere  Mar- 
chette  sought  to  know  the  reason  he  put  her 
questions  aside.  One  evening  as  she  was 
making  her  way  home  she  saw  her  grand 
son  chatting  with  a  girl  at  the  door  of  a 

o  o 

milliner's  dingy  shop.  The  heart  of  poor 
old  Mere  Marchette  sunk  within  her.  The 
castles  in  the  air,  from  whose  glittering  tow 
ers  had  shone  delusive  lights  to  strengthen 

o  o 

and  encourage  her,  fell  in  ruins  before 
her  eyes.  In  a  moment  the  burden  of  her 
age,  her  poverty,  her  weariness,  seemed  in 
creased  tenfold.  Feebly  she  climbed  the 
long  stairs  and  sat  down  to  wait,  heart 
broken.  She  had  all  the  peasant's  instinc 
tive  distrust  of  Paris :  she  had  not  been  able 
to  live  in  the  Latin  Quarter  without  compre 
hending  something  of  the  evil  about  her, 
although,  happily  for  her,  the  worst  features 
of  Parisian  life  would  have  been  so  unintel 
ligible  that  she  might  have  seen  them  un 
moved.  She  thought  no  evil  now  of  Pierre, 
but  she  was  seized  with  a  terrible  fear  lest 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  IJl 

he  might  fall  a  victim  to  one  of  the  sirens 
of  the  Latin  Quarter,  who,  to  Mere  Mar- 
chette's  thinking,  destroyed  soul  and  body 
alike. 

Mere  Marchette  did  not  tell  Pierre  of  the 
discovery  she  had  made.  She  was  only 
more  gentle  with  him,  while  in  secret  she 
prayed  more  fervently.  For  some  days 
longer  the  lad's  mysterious  absence  contin 
ued,  the  sad  hours  of  the  evening  stretching 
like  long  deserts  of  agony,  over  which  the 
soul  of  Mere  Marchette  walked  painfully 
with  bleeding  feet.  And  then  one  night 
Pierre  came  home  with  eyes  aglow,  and 
all  was  explained.  He  put  into  his  grand 
mother's  hand  a  little  pile  of  francs,  a  sum 
pitiful  enough  in  itself  but  large  to  them, 
and  told  how  a  milliner  in  the  street  beyond 
had  employed  him  in  moving  boxes  and 
clearing  out  the  attics  of  her  house,  which 
were  to  be  remodelled  into  lodgings.  This 
had  been  his  secret,  and  in  his  thought  of 
the  joyful  surprise  he  was  to  give  his  grand 
mother  he  had  forgotten  the  pain  she  might 
endure  by  misunderstanding  his  absence. 

It  was  such  trifles  as  this  that  were  the 
great  events  in  the  life  of  Mere  Marchette 
and  Pierre.  There  was  a  tenderness,  an 
unselfishness,  an  idyllic  devotion  in  their 


1/2  A   BOOK  a    NINE    TALES. 

love  which  no  amount  of  wealth,  or  culture, 
or  rank  could  have  heightened ;  but  in  the 
lad's  veins  was  the  blood  of  a  soldier,  that 
stirred  hot  with  the  currents  of  a  vigorous 
youth.  Of  the  army  he  had  dreamed  from 
his  cradle,  and  strong  as  was  his  love  for 
Mere  Marchette  the  force  of  destiny  was 
stronger.  It  was  the  old  tragedy  of  youth 
and  age,  of  the  absorption  of  maternal  love 
and  the  restless  impulses  of  the  boy's  heart. 
Pierre  justified  his  desire  to  himself  with  the 
excuse  that  he  could  earn  more  money  in 
the  ranks ;  but  his  grandmother  knew,  only 
too  well,  the  force  of  the  instinct  he  had 
inherited.  She  had  seen  the  same  struggle 
in  the  life  of  his  father 

When  Pierre  was  eighteen  he  shouldered 
his  musket  and  marched  away,  leaving  poor 
old  Mere  Marchette  as  much  a  stranger  in 
Paris  as  when  she  had  come  to  it  two  years 
before  to  weep  arid  pray  alone.  It  would 
hardly  be  within  th'e  power  of  words  to  paint 
the  anguish  which  lay  between  Pierre's  depart 
ure  and  that  hot  July  noon  when  Mere  Mar 
chette  lay  dying  at  the  Salpetriere.  Always 
in  Paris  she  had  been  like  a  wild  thing,  caged 
and  bewildered,  confused  by  the  life  that 
swirled  about  her  in  the  great  city,  even 
when  she  had  been  sustained  by  the  presence 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  1/3 

of  Pierre.  When  he  was  gone  the  gentle 
old  soul  began  to  die  of  homesickness  and 
heartbreak.  For  two  years  she  fought  death 
stolidly  but  persistently,  refusing  to  acknowl 
edge  to  herself  that  she  was  breaking  down 
under  the  stress  of  loneliness  and  sorrow. 
She  came  of  a  race  that  died  hard,  and  al 
though  she  was  past  eighty  she  looked  for 
ward  hopefully  to  the  time  when  Pierre 
should  leave  the  army  and  come  back  to 
live  with  her  again. 

But  the  struggle  for  existence  in  Paris 
was  hard,  even  when  the  joy  of  working 
for  Pierre  sustained  her;  when  he  was  gone 
it  became  intolerable.  At  the  end  of  two 
years  the  strength  and  courage  even  of  the 
sturdy  Norman  peasant  woman  were  exhaust 
ed  ;  and  then  a  dreadful  disease,  which  had 
before  shown  itself  in  her  family,  seemed  to 
take  advantage  of  her  weakness  to  spring 
upon  her.  She  had  been  a  charwoman  in 
the  family  of  Jean  Lommel's  mother,  and 
so  it  came  about  that  through  the  influence 
of  the  young  doctor  she  had  been  admitted 
to  the  Salpetriere  when  she  was  already 
dying  from  cancer  in  the  stomach. 

There  was  no  patient  in  the  ward  who 
was  not  of  better  birth  than  Mere  Marchette. 
She  was  of  all  most  deficient  in  education, 


1/4  A   BOOK  O    NINE    TALES. 

in  knowledge  of  the  world,  in  the  graces  of 
life ;  and  yet  of  them  all  it  was  only  the 
poor  old  peasant  woman  who  awakened  in 
the  minds  of  the  attendants  a  glow  of  genu 
ine  affection.  There  are  some  people  who 
are  born  to  be  loved,  and  when  these  rare 
beings  remain  worthy  of  it,  neither  age,  nor 
poverty,  nor  sickness  can  destroy  their  power 
of  awaking  affection.  The  hired  nurses 
touched  their  lips  to  her  forehead  in  kisses 
given  furtively,  as  if  they  were  surprised, 
and  prepared  to  be  ashamed  of  the  emotion 
which  called  from  them  this  unwonted  dis 
play.  The  doctors  spoke  to  her  in  tones 
unprofessionally  soft,  while  Dr  Lommel, 
who  had  charge  of  the  ward,  treated  her 
with  an  affectionate  courtesy  scarcely  less 
warm  than  that  he  would  have  shown  to  his 
own  grandmother.  They  all  knew  that 
Mere  Marchette  must  die,  and  from  counting 
the  time  in  weeks  they  had  dropped  to 
days,  and  then  to  hours.  Indeed  it  seemed 
only  the  old  woman's  will  which  kept  her 
alive  now  until  Pierre  should  come.  She 
had  borne  all  her  sufferings  without  a  mur 
mur,  but  she  had  not  been  able  wholly  to 
repress  the  cry  of  her  heart.  The  young 
soldier's  regiment  was  in  Algiers,  and  there 
had  been  difficulties  about  his  furlough. 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  l/$ 

Had  it  been  any  other  death-bed  in  the  hos 
pital  to  which  he  had  been  summoned  these 
difficulties  would  hardly  have  been  sur 
mounted  ;  but  in  behalf  of  Mere  Marchette 
the  physicians  had  worked  so  zealously  that 
all  obstacles  were  removed  and  Pierre's  leave 
of  absence  granted.  From  the  moment  she 
had  been  told  that  her  grandson  was  on 
his  way  she  had  been  perfectly  quiet,  and, 
as  the  doctor  said,  had  devoted  her  whole 
being  to  keeping  alive  until  Pierre  should 
come. 

And  on  this  hot  July  noon  the  train  which 
was  bringing  Pierre  was  drawing  nearer  to 
Paris,  and  Mere  Marchette  lay  so  still  that 
she  seemed  scarcely  to  breathe, — so  still 
that  one  might  fancy  she  would  not  even 
think,  lest  in  so  doing  she  exhaust  some 
precious  grain  of  strength  and  so  should  die 
without  the  blessiner  of  that  last  embrace. 


III. 

WHOEVER  keeps  himself  informed  of  the 
course  of  modern  scientific  investigations  is 
likely  to  be  aware  that  during  the  last  decade 
especial  attention  has  been  given  at  the  Sal- 
petriere  to  that  strange  physical  or  psychical 


1/6  A   BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

force  known  as  hypnotism.  M.  Charcot, 
chief  of  the  school  of  the  Salpetrierc,  has 
particularly  distinguished  himself  by  his 
researches.  Attacked  at  first  by  his  pro 
fessional  brethren,  it  has  been  his  good 
fortune  to  live  to  see  the  scientific  value  of 
hypnotism  acknowledged,  and  to  be  trium 
phantly  readmitted  to  the  Academy  of  Sci 
ences,  which  had  at  first  stigmatized  his 
investigations  as  mere  charlatanism.  Charles 
Fere,  an  assistant  physician  at  the  Salpetriere, 
with  Richer,  Bourneville,  and  nearly  a  score 
other  distinguished  men,  have  pursued  their 
investigations  with  great  zeal  and  thorough 
ness,  and  have  produced  a  valuable  literature 
devoted  to  this  intricate  subject. 

It  will  be  easily  understood  that  all  the 
physicians  at  the  Salpetriere,  and  especially 
the  younger  men,  could  not  fail  to  be  deeply 
interested  in  this  new  and  fascinating  branch 
of  science.  The  facts  upon  which  had  been 
founded  the  theories  of  mesmerism,  animal 
magnetism,  and  other  shadowy  systems  were 
reduced  to  order  and  scientifically  tested. 
M.  Charcot  and  his  associates  worked  with 
much  care  and  thoroughness,  and,  without 
being  able  to  solve  the  mystery  of  the  force 
with  which  they  dealt,  they  proved  its  value 
as  a  therapeutic  agent.  In  the  cure  of  ner- 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  177 

vous  diseases,  and  in  dealing  with  hysterical 
patients,  they  obtained  remarkable  and  satis 
factory  results.  They  were  even  able  to 
alleviate  suffering  by  simply  assuring  the 
patient,  while  in  a  hypnotic  sleep,  that  he 
would  be  free  from  pain  on  waking. 

To  the  outside  observer  no  feature  of  this 
strange  power  is  more  remarkable  than  the 
influence  the  hypnotist  may  exert  over  his 
subject  after  the  trance  is  broken.  A  hypno 
tized  person  may  be  told  to  perform  any  act 
on  awaking,  and,  when  seemingly  restored 
to  his  normal  condition,  bears  the  impress 
of  that  command  so  strongly  that  he  is  urged 
to  obey  it  by  an  irresistible  impulse.  It  is 
quite  as  easy,  moreover,  to  foist  upon  the 
patients  the  most  extraordinary  delusions. 
The  subject  is  tolcl  that  upon  awaking  a 
bottle  will  seem  to  be  a  lamp,  a  blank  card 
a  picture,  or  any  other  deception  which  comes 
into  the  mind  of  the  hypnotist ;  and  so  per 
fect  is  the  working  of  this  mysterious  and 
terrible  law  that  the  delusion  is  accomplished 
to  its  minutest  details. 

Dr.  Lommel,  like  all  his  young  confreres, 
had  become  intensely  interested  in  all  these 
researches,  so  like  a  scientific  realization  of 
the  fairy  tales  of  the  Orient.  He  had  even 
tried  some  experiments  on  his  own  account; 


1/8  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES, 

and  when  the  sufferings  of  Mere  Marchette 
became  pitifully  intense  he  had  ventured  to 
attempt  the  substitution  of  hypnotism  for 
opiates  in  relieving  her  distress.  The  old 
woman  had  not  easily  yielded  to  this  influ 
ence.  Susceptibility  to  hypnotism  is  more 
apt  to  be  found  in  hysterical  or  nervously 
sensitive  subjects  than  in  such  sturdy  char 
acters.  By  degrees,  however,  Dr.  Lommel 
established  control  over  her  In  the  end, 
to  throw  her  into  a  hypnotic  sleep  he  had 
only  to  hold  his  forefinger  an  inch  or  two 
from  her  forehead,  so  that  her  eyes  in 
looking  at  it  turned  upward  and  inward  a 
little.  He  did  not  experiment  with  Mere 
Marchette ;  he  felt  too  tenderly  toward  the 
old  woman  to  make  her  the  subject  of  scien 
tific  investigation  outside  of  the  direct  line 
of  treatment.  He  simply  said,  "  When  you 
awaken  you  will  be  free  from  pain,  Mere 
Marchette ;  "  then  he  would  breathe  lightly 
on  her  forehead  and  the  sick  woman  would 
awaken,  to  lie  as  peaceful  and  painless  as  if 
no  terrible  disease  was  gnawing  like  a  tiger 
at  her  vitals. 

The  case  had  attracted  a  good  deal  of  at 
tention  at  the  Salpetriere,  and  although  Mere 
Marchette  was  utterly  ignorant  of  it,  her  sick 
bed  was  a  point  of  interest  toward  which 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  179 

were  turned  the  thoughts  of  physicians  over 
half  of  Europe.  The  unlearned  peasant,  to 
whom  the  simplest  terms  of  science  would 
have  been  unintelligible,  was  furnishing  data 
for  future  scientific  treatises;  and  people 
of  whose  very  existence  she  was  unaware 
read  the  daily  bulletins  of  her  condition  with 
closest  eagerness. 


IV. 

IT  was  a  few  minutes  after  twelve  o'clock 
when  Dr.  Lommel  reentered  the  ward.  Mere 
Marchette  lay  apparently  sleeping,  but  as  lu 
approached  her  bedside  the  old  eyes  opened 
with  a  piercing  and  eager  question.  The 
young  man  shook  his  head,  smiling  tenderly. 

"Not  quite  yet,  Mere  Marchette,"  he  said; 
"  there  are  still  some  minutes  to  wait." 

He  sat  down  beside  the  bed  and  laid  his 
fingers  on  her  wrist.  The  pulse  was  so  faint 
that  he  could  scarcely  feel  it,  but  it  was 
steady.  For  some  minutes  he  remained 
quiet,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  poor  old 
face  before  him.  There  came  into  his  mind 
the  thought  of  what  this  woman's  life  had 
been  :  her  childhood  and  youth  in  the  hut  of 
a  Norman  peasant;  of  what  her  own  home 
might  have  been  when  she  became  a  wife 


180  A  BOOK  a  NINE    TALES. 

and  mother;  of  the  desolation  which  had 
come  upon  her  in  the  death  of  all  her  family 
save  only  Pierre ;  of  the  strange  fate  that  had 
brought  her  to  Paris ;  of  the  terrible  wrench 
which  her  old  heart  must  have  felt  when  her 
grandson  was  taken  from  her ;  and  of  the 
pathetic  patience  with  which  she  had  borne 
privation,  loneliness,  and  suffering. 

He  knew  only  the  outlines  of  her  history, 
since  Mere  Marchette  had  spoken  little  of 
herself.  What  her  feelings  might  have  been 

o  o 

he  could  only  imagine :  the  old  woman  could 
not  have  told  her  mental  experiences ;  she 
had  never  even  analyzed  them.  Unless  he 
had  been  a  peasant  and  a  mother  himself, 
Lommel  could  not  have  divined  Mere  Mar- 
chette's  emotions ;  he  could  only  reflect  what 
he  should  have  felt  in  her  place.  He  said 
to  himself  at  last  that,  after  all,  the  cir 
cumstances  which  made  Mere  Marchette's 
lot  so  pathetic  must  also  have  deadened 
her  sensibilities  and  so  have  softened  her 
suffering. 

He  sighed  and  looked  at  his  watch.  His 
assistant  had  gone  to  the  railway  station  to 
meet  Pierre,  and  the  time  he  had  fixed  for 
their  return  was  already  past  by  five  minutes. 
He  felt  again  of  his  patient's  pulse,  with  a 
terrible  dread  lest  after  all  the  young  soldier 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  I  Si 

should  arrive  too  late.  The  artery  throbbed 
more  feebly,  but  still  steadily ;  and  at  his 
touch  the  sick  woman  opened  her  eyes  with 
the  old  questioning  look. 

"  Patience,  Mere  Marchette,"  he  said,  nod 
ding  encouragingly;  "  all  goes  well." 

She  did  not  speak,  but  she  gave  him  a 
look  so  eloquent  with  gratitude  that  words 
were  not  needed.  Then  she  lay  quiet  again 
and  the  silent  watch  went  on.  Five  minutes 
passed,  ten,  fifteen ;  the  young  doctor  be 
came  extremely  uneasy.  At  last  in  the  dis 
tance  he  heard  a  clock  strike  one.  At  the 
sound  Mere  Marchette  opened  her  eyes  with 
a  quick,  startled  glance. 

"  Pierre !  "  she  cried,  in  a  voice  of  intense 
love  and  terror. 

"  Victor  has  gone  to  the  station  to  meet 
him ;  patience  yet  a  little." 

The  old  woman  regarded  him  with  a  look 
of  terrible  pathos. 

"  God  could  not  let  me  die  without  seeing 
Pierre,"  she  murmured. 

At  that  moment,  through  the  still  after 
noon,  was  heard  the  sound  of  a  carriage. 
Mere  Marchette's  eyes  shone  with  a  wild  and 
fevered  expression. 

"  You  must  be  calm,"  Lommel  said.  "  I 
will  bring  him  to  you." 


1 82  A   BOOK   a  NINE    TALES. 

He  administered  the  little  stimulant  she 
could  take,  and  passed  quickly  out  into  the 
corridor. 


V. 


DR.  LOMMEL  closed  the  door  of  the  ward 
behind  him  and  started  down  the  corridor, 
but  at  the  first  step  he  stopped  suddenly  with 
a  terrible  sinking  of  the  heart.  Victor  was 
coming  toward  him,  but  alone,  and  with  a 
white  face, 

"  Victor,"  Jean  cried,  in  a  voice  intense  but 
low,  "  what  has  happened ?  Where  is  Pierre? " 

"  There  has  been  an  accident,"  Victor  re 
turned.  "  A  bridge  broke  under  his  train." 

"  But  you  do  not  know  — -"began  Lommel. 

"  Yes,"  the  other  interrupted ;  "  M.  de 
Brue,  who  was  on  the  train  and  escaped  with 
a  broken  arm,  was  in  the  same  compartment 
with  Pierre.  He  rode  through  on  the  engine 
that  came  in  for  help.  Pierre  had  told  him  I 
\vas  to  meet  him,  and  so  when  M.  de  Brue 
saw  me  he  stopped  to  say  that  the  soldier  was 
struck  on  the  chest  and  killed  instantly." 

Dr.  Lommel  stood  regarding  his  compan 
ion  with  terror  and  compassion  in  his  look. 

"  O  won  Dieu !  "  he  said ;  "  poor  Mere 
Marchette !  " 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  183 

"  It  will  kill  her,"  Victor  responded. 

"  That  is  nothing,"  was  the  doctor's  reply. 
"  It  is  not  death,  but  the  agony  she  will 
suffer." 

At  that  moment  the  nurse  came  out  of  the 
ward  and  hurried  down  the  corridor  to  join 
them. 

"  M.  le  Docteur,"  she  said,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon,  but  the  excitement  of  Mere  Mar- 
chettc  is  so  great  that  I  venture  to  suggest 
that  her  grandson  hurry." 

She  glanced  around  as  she  spoke,  and  saw 
that  he  was  not  there.  An  exclamation  rose 
to  her  lips ;  the  doctor  checked  her  by  a 
glance. 

"  Go  back  to  Mere  Marchette,"  said  he,  "  and 
say  that  I  am  cautioning  Pierre  —  Stay, 
I  will  go  myself.  Wait  here,  Victor." 

He  went  back  into  the  ward  and  passed 
down  between  the  cots,  from  which  eyes  that 
the  indifference  of  illness  scarcely  left  human, 
watched  him  with  faint  curiosity.  Mere  Mar 
chette  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  trembling  with 
eagerness  and  excitement.  All  the  reserve 
which  she  had  maintained  for  weeks  had  been 
swept  aside.  The  moment  for  which  she  had 
kept  herself  alive  had  come  at  last,  and  there 
was  no  longer  any  need  to  save  her  energy. 
Her  eyes  shone,  a  feverish  glow  was  on  her 


1 84  ^  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

cheek,  even  her  withered  lips  had  taken  on 
for  the  moment  a  wan  and  ghostly  red.  It 
seemed  to  the  doctor,  as  he  looked  at  her,  as 
if  all  the  vitality  which  remained  in  her  feeble 
frame  was  being  expended  in  a  last  quick  fire. 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  "  I  have  been  warning 
Pierre  to  be  calm,  when  it  is  you  to  whom  I 
should  speak.  Come,  it  will  take  only  a  mo 
ment,  but  I  must  give  you  treatment  before  I 
can  let  you  see  him." 

As  he  spoke  he  put  his  forefinger  up  to  her 
forehead  with  a  gesture  he  always  used  in 
hypnotizing  her.  Mere  Marchette  struggled 
a  moment  as  if  she  could  not  yield  to  any 
thing  which  delayed  her  reunion  with  Pierre  ; 
then  she  sank  into  a  hypnotic  sleep.  The 
doctor  leaned  forward  and  spoke  with  an 
emphasis  which  he  had  never  before  used 
with  his  patient. 

"  When  you  awake,"  he  said,  "  you  will  see 
Pierre;  the  person  I  shall  bring  to  you  is 
your  grandson.  Remember,"  he  repeated, 
"  it  is  Pierre  who  will  come  in  with  me." 

He  breathed  on  her  eyelids  in  the  usual 
method  of  awaking  her. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  I  will  bring  him,  Mere 
Marchette." 

He  went  back  to  where  Victor  and  the 
nurse  were  awaiting  him. 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  185 

"  Victor,"  he  said  quickly,  "  you  know  the 
experiment  M.  Charcot  tried  yesterday  when 
he  made  a  hypnotized  patient  believe  one 
person  was  another ;  I  have  told  Mere  Mar- 
chctte  that  you  are  Pierre.  You  must  take 
his  place;  come  quickly." 

The  young  man  drew  back. 

"  I  cannot,"  he  protested. 

"  You  must,"  Lommel  returned,  almost 
fiercely.  "  Come." 


VI. 


IT  was  with  terrible  inward  misgiving  that 
Jean  and  Victor  entered  the  ward ;  but  as 
soon  as  the  eyes  of  Mere  Marchette  fell  upon 
the  latter  they  knew  that  the  experiment  was 
a  success.  Such  a  look  of  yearning  love  il 
lumined  the  withered  old  features,  such  an 
unspeakable  joy  shone  in  the  sunken  eyes, 
such  quivering  eagerness  was  expressed  by 
the  outstretched  hands,  that  the  young  men 
found  their  way  to  the  bedside  blinded  by 
tears.  An  inarticulate  cry,  that  was  half 
moan  and  half  sob,  burst  from  the  lips  of 
Mere  Marchette  as  Victor  fell  on  his  knees 
by  the  bedside.  Carried  out  of  himself  by 
genuine  feeling,  the  young  man  had  no  need 


1 86  A  BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

to  simulate  the  emotions  necessary  for  the 
part  he  was  playing.  Seizing  the  wrinkled 
hand  which  lay  before  him  on  the  bed  he 
covered  it  with  tears  and  kisses ;  then,  with 
a  cry  of  piercing  sweetness,  Mere  Marchette 
flung  herself  forward  into  his  arms. 

"  O  Pierre,  Pierre  !  "  she  sobbed.  "  Oh,  the 
good  God,  the  good  God  !  " 

She  clasped  her  arms  about  his  neck,  she 
strained  him  to  her  breast,  the  feebleness  of 
her  dying  embrace  transformed  to  strength 
by  the  divine  fervor  of  maternal  love.  She 
mingled  her  kisses  with  a  soft  and  hardly 
articulate  babble  of  endearing  words;  the 
terms  which  she  had  used  over  his  cradle  she 
mingled  with  the  pet  names  of  his  childhood 
and  the  loving  speech  which  belonged  to 
maturer  years.  She  held  him  away  from  her 
that  she  might  look  at  him,  and  her  eyes 
were  holden  so  that  she  saw  in  his  face  the 
changes  that  her  fancy  had  pictured  in  think 
ing  of  the  real  Pierre. 

"  Ah,"  she  said,  "  how  brown  thou  hast 
grown  ;  and  thou  art  such  a  man  now  !  Ah, 
thou  rogue,"  she  went  on,  laughing  softly,  "  I 
knew  thou  hadst  grown  a  beard —  and  not  a 
word  of  it  in  thy  letters.  But  I  knew." 

She  put  her  thin  fingers  under  his  chin  and 
with  a  sudden  gravity  lifted  his  face. 


MERE  MARCHETTE.  1 87 

"Look  in  my  eyes,"  she  said  ;  "why  dost 
thou  turn  away?  Hastthou  not  been  a  good 
boy  ;  hast  thou  not  loved  the  good  God?  " 

Poor  Victor,  overwhelmed  with  the  dread 
ful  consciousness  of  deceit,  found  it  almost 
impossible,  in  face  of  this  touching  and  pious 
affection,  to  meet  the  old  woman's  glance. 
He  struggled  to  force  himself  to  look  into  her 
eyes  unwaveringly.  Dr.  Lommel  laid  his 
hand  upon  his  companion's  shoulder. 

"  Yes,  Mere  Marchette,"  said  he,  "  Pierre 
is  a  good  lad  ;  that  I  will  answer  for." 

The  old  woman  raised  her  eyes  toward 
heaven,  and  her  lips  moved.  She  was  evi 
dently  praying.  She  had  received  extreme 
unction  just  before  noon,  but  this  moment  in 
which  she  commended  her  grandson  to  God 
was  to  her  no  less  solemn  than  that  of  her 
own  last  communion.  Then  she  put  out  her 
hand  to  Dr.  Lommel  with  her  smile  of  won 
derful  sweetness  and  an  air  of  noble  simplicity. 

"  You  have  been  so  kind  to  old  Mere  Mar 
chette/'  were  her  words ;  "  the  good  God 
will  reward  you." 

He  looked  at  the  old  dying  peasant  woman 
and  tried  to  speak,  but  his  sobs  choked  him. 
He  bent  and  kissed  her  hand  and  laid  it  back 
gently  in  that  of  Victor.  Her  little  strength 
was  evidently  failing  fast.  With  a  last  effort 


1 88  A  BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

she  made  a  movement  to  drag  herself  nearer 
to  Victor.  He  understood  her  wish  and  sup 
ported  her  in  his  arms. 

"  Promise  me,"  she  murmured,  her  voice 
wasted  almost  to  a  whisper,  "  that  thou  wilt 
be  good." 

"  I  promise,"  he  answered. 

And  the  words  were  no  less  sincere  because 
she  mistook  the  speaker.  A  smile  of  heavenly 
rapture  came  over  her  face  ;  she  tried  to  speak 
and  failed.  But  Victor  understood  her  wish 
and  kissed  her.  As  their  lips  parted  she 
sighed  quiveringly. 

"  She  is  dead,"  said  Dr.  Lommel. 


VII. 

VICTOR  laid  the  body  gently  back  upon 
the  bed  and  rose  to  his  feet.  He  seized  his 
friend  by  the  shoulders ;  the  tears  were 
streaming  down  his  cheeks. 

"O  mon  Dieu,  Jean!"  he  cried,  "to  de 
ceive  such  trust.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  vio 
lating  a  sacrament." 

"  I  know,"  the  other  answered  ;  "  but  ah, 
how  happy  she  was !  " 


fntcrtoc  f  iftf). 


SUCH  SWEET  SORROW; 


"SUCH  SWEET   SORROW." 

Parting  is  such  sweet  sorrow. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  ii.  2. 

[A  drawing-room.  Fanny  Motley,  who  has  been 
making  a  long  call  upon  Jier  bosom  friend,  Alice 
Langley,  has  at  last  risen  to  go.~\ 

Alice.  Oh,  don't  go  yet.  I  have  n't  told  you 
half  the  things  I  wanted  to. 

Fanny.  Oh,  I  must  go.  I  Ve  got  to  go  home  to 
dress  for  Mrs.  Fresco's  dinner.  Do  you  suppose 
Jack  will  be  there? 

A.    He  told  me  he  was  going. 

F.  Oh,  I  do  hope  he  won't  fail.  I  do  so  want 
to  joke  him  about  his  sleigh-ride  with  Ella.  Do 
you  suppose  she  wore  her  hat  with  the  orange 
plumes?  It's  awfully  unbecoming  to  her.  It 
makes  her  look  just  salmon  color. 

A.  She  always  had  perfectly  hideous  taste.  Do 
you  remember  that  dowdy  gown  of  green  plush 
and  mauve  tulle  she  wore  to  Kate  West's  german? 
It  was  a  perfect  dream  of  horror. 

F.  Yes;  didn't  she  look  /><?;-- fectly  hideous? 
Well  (moving  toward  the  door},  come  and  see  me 
just  as  soon  as  you  can. 


IQ2  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

A.  I  '11  come  in  to-morrow  before  sewing-circle, 
if  I  can,  to  hear  about  the  dinner.  Don't  be  too 
hard  on  Jack.  You  know  he 's  aw-i\\\\y  thin- 
skinned. 

F.    Oh,  I  won't  be  hard  on  him. 

A.  (pausing  as  they  reach  the  door)  Is  that  the 
boa  you  had  Christmas? 

F.  Yes;  isn't  it  lovely?  But  I  told  mamma  I 
knew  she  got  it  because  she  knew  I  'd  got  to  have 
one,  and  she  'd  got  to  give  me  something. 

A.    How  mean  of  you  ! 

F.  Oh,  she  did  n't  mind.  She  's  used  to  it.  Be 
sure  and  come  in  to-morrow. 

A.  Yes,  I  will.  Oh,  did  I  tell  you  that  Tom 
Jones  has  invited  Sophia  Weston  to  go  to  the 
opera  Saturday  night? 

F.    You  don't  mean  it.     Has  he,  really? 

A.    Yes ;  Ethel  Mott  told  me  this  morning. 

F.    Do  you  suppose  he  is  in  earnest,  after  all? 

A.  Oh,  there  's  no  telling  about  him.  Frank 
says  they  bet  about  it  at  the  club. 

F.    About  him  and  Sophia? 

A.    Yes ;  whether  he  '11  propose  before  Lent. 

F.  How /^r-fectly  horrid  !  Men  are  the  worst 
creatures.  I  declare,  I  think  those  dreadful  clubs 
ought  to  be  suppressed. 

A.  So  do  I.  They  do  say  the  most  outrageous 
things.  I  don't  see  how  they  can  sit  and  listen  to 
them. 

F.    I  don't,  either. 


"SUCH. SWEET   SORROWS  193 

A.    And  they  talk  over  all  the  scandals. 

F.  Yes,  it  is  simply  diabolical.  How  perfectly 
sweet  it  is  to  have  a  brother  who  will  tell  you  all 
about  it. 

A.  Isn't  it?  It  is  almost  as  good  as  going 
myself. 

F.  Will  never  tells  me  a  single  thing  {moving 
on  into  the.  hall}.  Well,  be  sure  you  come,  and 
come  as  early  as  you  can.  Good-bye.  {Kisses 
her.) 

A.  Good-bye.  That  boa  is  just  as  becoming 
as  it  can  be. 

F.  Do  you  think  so?  Clara  Martin's  makes 
her  look  as  if  she  had  n't  any  neck  at  all. 

A.    Oh,  you  can  wear  anything. 

F.  Thank  you,  dear.  But  then  you  can  afford 
to  say  so,  because  you  can  wear  anything  yourself. 
Would  you  ask  Jack  about  the  orange  feathers? 

A.  Oh,  he  wouldn't  know.  Men  never  know 
what  girls  have  on,  —  except  Clarence  Key,  and 
he  's  a  perfect  man-milliner.  Did  I  tell  you  what 
he  said  to  Kate  West  at  the  Westons'  tea?  I'd 
have  scratched  his  eyes  out. 

F.    No  ;  what  in  the  world  did  he  say? 

A.  You  won't  repeat  it?  Because  I  told  Kate 
I  would  n't  tell.  She  was  so  furious  she  had  to  tell 
somebody. 

F.    I  '11  never  tell.     What  was  it? 

A.  You  know  that  tailor-made  gown  she  wears? 
The  one  made  of  gray  corduroy?  Well,  Clarence 
13 


194  A   BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

Key  asked  her  if  she  got  it  so  her  husband  could 
have  it  made  into  riding  trousers,  after  she  was 
done  with  it.  Did  you  ever  hear  such  imper 
tinence? 

F.    He  did  n't  really  ! 

A.    He  really  did  ! 

F.  Why,  Alice  !  I  should  think  she  'd  have 
killed  him.  I  would. 

A.    So  would  I. 

F.  (putting  her  hand  on  the  handle  of  the  door} 
Well,  good-bye.  Give  my  love  to  Blanche  when 
you  write. 

A.    Yes,  I  will. 

F.    I  shall  see  you  to-morrow? 

A.    Yes.     Good-bye. 

\_Fanny  opens  the  door,  and  a  blast  of  cold  wind 
rushes  /"«.] 

F,  Ugh  !  How  awfully  cold  it  is.  I  wish  I 
had  taken  the  carriage. 

A.  I  went  over  to  Ethel  Mott's  this  morning, 
and  I  thought  I  should  freeze  to  death. 

F.  I  hope  I  sha'n't  get  pneumonia  or  anything. 
I  want  to  go  to  the  Claytons'  ball. 

A.    Oh,  do  tell  me  ;  what  are  you  going  to  wear? 

F.  (returning  and  closing  the  door}  There,  that 
is  one  thing  I  wanted  to  ask  you  about.  I  want 
you  to  go  in  white,  and  I  '11  wear  that  black  lace  I 
had  made  in  New  York  last  winter.  I  Ve  never 
worn  it  here  at  all,  and  that 's  the  most  stylish 
gown  I  ever  had  in  my  whole  life. 


"SUCH  SWEET  SORROWr  195 

A.  Would  n't  that  be  striking  ?  We  could  go 
in  together.  I  '11  have  a  new  white  tulle,  and 
wear  my  pearls.  I  '11  make  Aunt  Alicia  lend  me 
hers,  too. 

F.    That  will  be  too  lovely. 

A.    And  you  '11  wear  diamonds  ? 

F.  Oh,  no.  I  wore  jet  in  New  York.  Not  a 
single  thing  but  black  about  me ;  not  even  my 
fan-sticks. 

A.    How  /(T-fectly  enchanting  ! 

F.    \Vill  you  do  it  ? 

A.  Of  course  I  will.  I  '11  buy  the  stuff  to 
morrow. 

F.  We  '11  talk  about  it  when  you  come  to-mor 
row.  (Opening  the  door.)  I  must  go  this  very 
moment,  or  I  shall  never  get  to  Mrs.  Fresco's. 

A.    What  are  you  going  to  wear  to-night  ? 

F.    That  cardinal  I  showed  you  the  other  day. 

A.    Is  n't  that  rather  gorgeous? 

F.  Oh,  it 's  going  to  be  a  big  dinner,  you  know  ; 
and  there  's  lots  of  black  lace  on  it. 

A.    It  must  be  awfully  becoming. 

F.  It  is.  If  Jack  knows  anything,  he  ought  to 
see  a  difference  between  that  and  orange  plumes. 

A.  Ethel  Mott  told  me —  Oh,  do  come  in  a 
moment.  I  'm  simply  freezing  to  death,  and  I 
must  tell  you  this. 

F.  (once  more  coming  in  and  closing  the  door} 
Well,  do  be  quick.  I  ought  to  have  been  home 
long  ago. 


196  A  BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

A.    Oh,  you  Ve  lots  of  time. 

F.    But  it  takes  so  long  to  do  my  hair. 

A.    How  are  you  going  to  wear  it? 

F.  The  same  old  way.  I  wish  somebody  'd 
invent  some  new  style,  —  something  real  nice  and 
becoming.  I  asked  Uncle  Calvin  the  other  night 
if  he  had  n't  seen  some  pretty  styles  in  China, 
and  I  wish  you  could  have  seen  the  pictures  he 
brought  out  ! 

A.    What  were  they  like? 

F.  Like  ?  They  were  n't  like  anything.  Why, 
I  just  gasped  over  them  !  Ships,  and  butterflies, 
and  all  sorts  of  things ;  all  made  out  of  hair,  right 
on  your  own  head. 

A.    Not  really? 

F.  Yes,  just  as  I  tell  you.  I  never  saw  any 
thing  so  frightful. 

A,    It  must  have  been  perfectly  ghastly  ! 

F.  Well,  good-bye.  Come  early.  Oh  !  what 
were  you  going  to  tell  me  ? 

A.    To  tell  you? 

F.    Yes,  —  that  Ethel  Mott  said. 

A.  Oh,  she  said  that  Kate  West  has  been  cor 
responding  all  winter  with  that  West  Point  cadet 
she  met  at  Newport  last  summer. 

F.    No! 

A.    Yes  ! 

F.    Why,  Alice  Langley,  do  you  mean  it? 

A.    Ethel  said  she  knew  it. 

F.    I  don't  believe  it. 


"SUCH  SWEET  SORROW r  197 

A.    That 's  what  I  said. 

F.  But  she  's  as  good  as  engaged  to  George 
Maynard. 

A.    I  know  it. 

F.    I  think  it 's  perfectly  awful. 

A.    So  do  I. 

F.    Do  you  suppose  he  knows  it? 

A.  Oh,  no.  He  's  so  gone  on  Kate,  he  thinks 
she  'd  never  look  at  anybody  but  him. 

F.  I  never  heard  anything  so  perfectly  amazing 
in  my  life. 

A.  And  sometimes,  Ethel  says,  they  write  each 
other  two  letters  a  week. 

F.    Two  letters? 

A.    Two  letters. 

F.    In  one  week? 

A.    That 's  what  Ethel  says. 

F.  I  wonder  she  does  n't  expect  the  ground  to 
open  and  swallow  her.  I  never  heard  of  such 
deceit.  Why,  she 's  going  to  lead  the  german 
with  George  at  the  Wentworths'  next  week. 

A.    I  know  it. 

F.  Well,  I  Ve  always  said  Kate  West  could  n't 
be  trusted  out  of  your  sight.  (She  turns,  and 
opens  the  door.}  I  do  believe  that  every  time  I 
open  that  door  it  is  colder.  I  know  I  shall  die 
before  I  get  home,  —  or  freeze  my  ears. 

A.  Think  how  dreadful  it  would  be  to  freeze 
your  ears.  I  knew  a  girl  at  boarding-school  that 
froze  her  ears  skating  one  vacation,  and  they  hung 


198  A   BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

down  like  rags.  We  used  to  tell  her  they  were 
like  a  spaniel's,  and  call  her  Fido.  She  'd  get 
perfectly  furious. 

F.    I  don't  wonder. 

A.  It  was  awfully  good  fun  to  see  how  she  tried 
to  pretend  she  did  n't  care  ;  and  then,  when  she 
could  n't  stand  it  another  minute,  she  'd  catch  up 
the  very  first  thing  she  could  lay  her  hands  on,  and 
throw  it.  . 

F.  {descending  the  steps}  I  would  if  I  'd  been 
she.  Could  she  wear  ear-rings? 

A.  Oh,  not  for  the  longest  time,  —  as  much  as 
a  year,  any  way.  When  we  wanted  to  be  espe 
cially  pleasant,  we  told  her  that  frozen  ears  always 
came  off  after  a  time. 

F.    How  horrid  ! 

A.    But  it  was  such  fun  ! 

F.    Good-bye.     Be  sure  and  come  to-morrow. 

A.    Yes. 

F.    And  come  early. 

A.    Yes  ;  I  '11  come  right  after  luncheon. 

F.  Don't  you  think  your  gown  ought  to  be 
made  just  like  my  black  one? 

A.    Yes  ;  that  would  be  more  effective. 

F.    And  then  we  can  wear  our  hair  just  alike. 

A.  It 's  a  pity  you  could  n't  have  some  black 
flowers. 

F.  Yes.  I  don't  see  why  the  florists  don't  get 
up  some.  Phew !  It 's  as  cold  as  Greenland. 
Do  go  in.  You  '11  get  your  death  cold. 


"SUCH  SWEET  SORROW?'  199 

% 
A.    Good-bye.     Don't  tell  what  I  told  you. 

F.  No ;  not  to  a  soul.  How  did  Ethel  Mott 
find  out  about  the  letters? 

A.    She  would  n't  tell. 

F.  Do  you  suppose  she  really  knew,  or  only 
guessed  ? 

A.    She  said  she  really  and  truly  knew. 

F.    Isn't  it  amazing? 

A.    It  is  /<?r-fectly  incomprehensible. 

E.  Well,  good-bye.     I  hope  you  '11  have  good 
luck  at  the  Whist  Club  to-night. 

A.  Oh,  do  come  back  till  I  tell  you  what  Mr. 
Fremont  said  about  the  Whist  Club. 

[Fa  nny  returns  to  the  foot  of  the  steps,  and  Alice 
goes  half  way  down  to  meet  her.] 

A.  He  said  he  was  n't  going  to  the  Whist  Club 
any  more,  and  I  asked  him  why  not,  and  he  said 
he  was  tired  of  taking  girls  down  to  feed,  when 
they  'd  been  talking  so  all  the  evening  that  he 
could  n't  play. 

F,  Why,  I  never  heard  anything  so  insulting  ! 
A.    I   told   Mr.   Van    Bruch,   and    he    said    the 

trouble  was  that  Mr.  Fremont  wanted  all  the  time 
to  feed  himself. 

F.  Good.  Do  you  know  Colonel  Graham  says 
that  he  went  to  the  Vaughns'  to  play  whist,  and  they 
held  a  conversazione  instead.  Was  n't  that  clever? 

A.    Yes  ;  awfully. 

F.  Good-bye.  I  '11  tell  Jane  to  lay  out  my 
black  dress,  so  it  will  be  all  ready  when  you  come. 


200  A  BOOK  O  NINE    TALES. 

A.  I  '11  try  and  get  time  to  go  down  town  in 
the  morning,  to  see  what  I  can  get  to  make  my 
gown  of.  It 's  an  awful  shame  you  had  to  hurry 
away  so  ;  I  had  lots  of  things  to  say. 

F.  Well,  I  really  had  to  go,  you  know.  You 
can't  keep  a  dinner  party  waiting,  of  course. 

A.  Oh,  of  course  not.  Good-bye.  I  'm  awfully 
glad  you  came. 

F,    Good-bye.     I  Ve  had  a  lovely  time. 

\_She  at  last  really  goes,  and  Alice,  after  lingering 
a  second  to  regret  the  things  she  has  not  said,  retires 
and  closes  the  door  of  the  now  pretty  well  aired  house.  ] 


BARUM   WEST'S   EXTRAVAGANZA. 


BARUM  WEST'S  EXTRAVAGANZA. 

|ARUM  WEST  threw  down  his  pen, 
and  looked  about  his  attic  with  a 
gloomy  face.  The  light  from  his 
one  window,  a  dormer  facing  the 
east,  was  too  faint  to  permit  his  writing  any 
longer,  even  had  he  been  in  the  mood ;  and 
how  far  he  was  from  desiring  to  go  on  with 
his  work  was  shown  by  his  seizing  the  sheets 
which  were  the  result  of  his  afternoon's  labor, 
and  angrily  tearing  them  into  bits. 

The  room  was  not  unlike  the  traditional 
abode  of  that  melancholy  thing,  a  poor-devil 
author.  The  roof  sloped  from  the  middle  of 
the  ceiling  almost  to  the  floor,  the  niche  of 
the  dormer-window  where  his  writing-table 
stood  being  the  only  part  of  the  eastern  side 
of  the  chamber  where  one  could  stand  up 
right.  In  the  corner  on  the  opposite  side 
stood  an  old-fashioned,  high-posted  bedstead  ; 
a  bureau,  over  which  hung  a  tarnished  mirror 
of  antique  frame,  was  placed  opposite  the  tall 
stove,  in  which  was  carefully  cherished  a  fru- 


204  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

gal  coal  fire;  a  black  trunk  was  pushed  under 
the  eaves,  while  some  pine  shelves  held  the 
young  man's  unimposing  library.  Both  car 
pet  and  wall-paper  were  dingy  and  faded,  and 
in  the  darkening  winter  twilight  the  attic  was 
gloomy  enough  to  depress  the  spirits  of  one 
in  a  frame  of  mind  far  more  cheerful  than 
that  in  which  West  found  himself. 

Most  authors  are  too  unhappily  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  a  financial  crisis  is  apt  to 
be  so  desperately  unproductive  of  marketable 
ideas  that  even  the  excitement  of  a  definite 
order  is  likely,  at  such  a  time,  to  beget  in  the 
brain  rather  a  confused  sense  of  impotence 
than  a  creative  inspiration.  One  must  be  well 
seasoned  in  the  vicissitudes  of  a  literary  career 
to  be  able  to  do  his  best  under  the  combined 
pressure  of  sore  need  and  the  necessity  of 
seizing  at  once  an  unusual  opportunity.  West 
was  still  young  in  his  profession,  as  well  as  in 
years,  and  the  wild  exhilaration  of  receiving 
a  conditional  commission  had  given  place  to 
an  awful  feeling  of  despairing  helplessness. 
A  friend  who  had  considerable  confidence 
in  him,  and,  what  was  more  to  the  purpose, 
some  acquaintance  and  influence  in  theatrical 
circles,  had  persuaded  a  manager  to  promise 
to  consider  an  extravaganza  from  the  pen 
of  the  would-be  playwright,  and  Barum  felt 


BARUM   WESTS   EXTRAVAGANZA.        205 

as  if  his  whole  future  depended  upon  his 
success. 

He  had  started  upon  his  task  with  the 
utmost  hope  and  confidence.  He  had  for 
a  couple  of  years  been  studying  stage  work, 
writing  plays  that  nobody  would  touch,  and 
serving  that  dreary  apprenticeship  which 
comes  before  literary  success,  but  which  is, 
unhappily,  not  always  followed  by  it.  He  had 
pinned  above  his  writing-table  a  sentence  from 
"  Earl's  Dene,"  which  had  afforded  him  a 
sombre  support  often  enough :  "  The  only 
road  to  the  skies,  Mademoiselle,  is  up  the 
garret  stairs.  Mozart  climbed  them,  Moretti 
climbed  them,  .  .  .  everybody  who  has  ever 
done  anything  has  had  to  climb  them ;  and 
you,  Mademoiselle,  are  one  whose  duty  for 
the  present  is  to  starve."  It  may  have  been 
because  he  secretly  felt  that  he  had  starved 
long  enough,  or  from  the  buoyant  hope 
pathetically  natural  to  youth,  that  West  was 
convinced  that  his  time  had  come ;  but  at 
least  of  that  fact  he  had  no  doubt. 

When,  however,  he  sat  down  to  write,  he 
found  his  brain  teeming,  in  place  of  valuable 
ideas,  with  the  single  notion  that  this  time 
he  must  succeed;  instead  of  a  plot,  his  mind 
spun  visions  of  coming  greatness  ;  and  in  place 
of  elaborating  witticisms,  his  thoughts  turned 


206  A   BOOK  O'   NINE    TALES. 

alternately  to  dismal  memories  and  to  yet  more 
gloomy  forebodings.  To-day  ended  a  week 
of  futile  endeavor,  and  the  unlucky  writer 
was  forced  to  confess  to  himself  that,  so  far 
from  being  further  on  in  his  work  than  he 
was  seven  days  earlier,  he  had  stuck  where 
he  set  out,  and  acquired  the  fatal  hindrance 
of  a  self-distrust  which  benumbed  all  his 
powers. 

It  grew  quickly  darker  as  he  brooded,  the 
brief  February  twilight  shutting  down  rapidly. 
It  was  so  dark  when  at  last  he  got  heavily 
upon  his  feet  that  he  was  obliged  to  fumble 
about  for  his  shabby  hat  and  coat  in  the  shal 
low  closet  which  held  his  scant  wardrobe.  He 
muttered  to  himself  as  he  did  so  a  quotation 
from  Octave  Feuillet.  He  could  hardly  have 
been  an  aspirant  for  literary  honors,  and  not 
be  crammed  to  the  throat  with  quotations. 

"  '  Ce  iiest  done  pas  un  vain  mot,  la  f aim  !' ' 
he  said  aloud,  with  so  much  bitterness  that 
a  hearer,  had  there  been  one,  might  have  for 
given  his  sentimentality.      "  '  II y  a  done  i> rai 
ment  une  maladie  de  ce  nom-la?  " 

He  went  down  the  three  flights  of  stairs 
which  lay  between  his  chamber  and  the  sor 
did  street,  taking  his  way  to  a  cheap  restau 
rant,  which  his  soul  loathed,  but  to  which  the 
narrowness  of  his  purse  constrained  him. 


BARUM   WESTS   EXTRAVAGANZA.        207 

The  waiter-girls,  gossiping  together,  knew 
his  shabby  figure  too  well  to  hasten  to  serve 
him  with  any  alacrity  born  of  expectation  ot 
tips;  but  one  of  them  came  to  stand,  leaning 
by  one  hand  upon  the  table,  while  he  studied 
the  bill  of  fare  in  a  vain  attempt  to  discover 
some  dish  which  would  be  alike  satisfactory 
to  his  appetite  and  his  finances.  There  were 
stains  of  coffee  and  of  soup  upon  the  card, 
which  gave  him  a  feeling  of  disgust,  as  if  his 
food  had  been  served  in  an  unwashed  dish ; 
but  he  repressed  his  feelings  and  made  out 
his  meagre  order.  The  damsel  filled  him  the. 
usual  glass  of  ice-water,  tossed  an  evening 
paper  before  him,  and  betook  herself  to  cry 
the  supper  he  had  called  for  into  the  mouth 
of  a  rubber  tube,  which  hung  flabbily  out  of 
the  wall.  West  could  hear  the  voice  of  some 
body  under  ground  repeating  the  order,  like 
a  surly  subterranean  echo,  and  he  was  pee 
vishly  half  inclined  to  fling  a  plate  at  the 
head  of  a  man  at  the  next  table,  on  the 
supposition  that  that  individual  might  have 
been  listening  to  this  double  disclosure  of 
the  straitness  of  diet  to  which  his  poverty 
constrained  him. 

He  tried  to  interest  himself  in  the  paper 
which  had  been  given  him.  He  picked  out 
the  smallest  paragraphs  with  a  feeling  of  being 


208  A   BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

so  much  at  variance  with  the  world  in  general 
that  nothing  could  possibly  interest  him  which 
\vas  not  held  to  be  of  no  especial  moment  to 
the  majority.  Suddenly  he  felt  that  little  thrill 
with  which  a  man  always  comes  upon  his 
name  in  print.  Among  a  lot  of  brief  jottings 
was  the  statement  that  a  man  in  Chicago  had 
left  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  Barum 
West.  For  a  moment  his  heart  seemed  to 
stand  still,  but  instantly  his  common  sense 
reasserted  itself,  and  he  smiled  with  the  bitter 
but  fleeting  cynicism  of  youth  at  the  impos 
sibility  that  a  fortune  should  come  to  him  by 
any  lucky  throw  of  Fortune's  dice.  The  name 
was  sufficiently  uncommon,  however,  to  make 
the  coincidence  striking,  and  what  artistic 
youth,  so  placed  that  his  wits  were  more  or 
less  disconcerted  by  the  unevenness  of  life, 
could  fail  to  make  the  paragraph  the  starting- 
point  for  a  thousand  dreams. 

All  that  night,  when  he  should  have  been 
sleeping,  and  when  he  really  was  half  under  the 
influence  of  slumber,  Barum  West's  thoughts, 
which  should  have  been  devising  stage  situa 
tions,  droll  dialogue,  and  popular  allusions, 
occupied  themselves  with  that  illusive  for 
tune.  He  considered  what  he  would  do  did 
he  really  have  it ;  how  he  would  enjoy  it ; 
what  delights  he  would  purchase,  and  what 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA         209 

miseries  escape.  In  dreams  his  fancy  wove 
a  gorgeous  tissue  of  enchantment,  at  which 
he  smiled  when  he  waked,  although  in  reality 
it  was  little  more  extravagant  than  the  airy 
fabric  of  his  waking  fancies.  When  once  an 
imaginative  youth  gives  rein  to  his  fancy,  es 
pecially  if  hope  and  need  prick  the  tricksy 
steed  forward,  there  is  no  telling  to  what 
lengths  the  race  it  runs  may  not  stretch. 
West  certainly  did  not  believe  that  the  leg 
acy  of  which  he  had  seen  mention  was  really 
intended  for  his  pocket,  and  yet  the  coinci 
dence  of  the  name  seemed  to  him  so  good 
proof  that  it  went  far  toward  persuading  him 
that  he  was,  in  truth,  the  legatee.  For  the 
rest,  he,  perhaps  not  unconsciously,  humored 
a  little  a  dream  which  at  least  amused  for  the 
time  being  a  life  all  too  little  lightened  by 
frivolity  of  any  sort. 

It  was  not  until  the  following  evening  that 
it  occurred  to  West  that,  having  a  fortune  in 
hand,  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  invest 
it.  He  was  once  more  at  the  eating-house, 
which  to-night  he  regarded  with  less  bitter 
ness  than  hitherto,  so  strong  was  the  effect 
of  his  dream  in  putting  him  in  better  temper 
toward  life  and  the  world.  As  he  scanned 
the  paper,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  come 
upon  some  further  information  in  regard  to 
14 


210  A  BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

Barum  West's  fortune,  his  eye  lighted  on  the 
stock  reports,  and,  with  a  sudden  sense  of 
importance  he  reflected  that  with  two  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars  to  take  care  of  it 
behooved  him  to  furbish  up  whatever  knowl 
edge  he  possessed  of  stocks.  The  unintelli- 
gibility  of  the  stock  reports  was  sufficient 
proof  that  he  had  little  knowledge  to  furbish, 
but  this  only  aroused  his  combativeness,  and 
made  him  determined  to  learn. 

When  he  left  the  restaurant  he  bought  a 
paper  of  his  own,  and  taking  it  to  his  room, 
he  passed  the  evening  in  studying  finance  as 
represented  in  the  columns  of  the  daily 
journal.  There  was  something  amusing,  or 
pathetic,  as  one  might  look  at  it,  about  the 
absorption  with  which  he  gave  himself  to  the 
occupation  of  deciding  what  he  should  do 
with  $200,000  if  he  had  it.  He  reflected 
shrewdly  that  it  were  wise  not  to  invest  his 
whole  capital  in  a  single  stock,  and  he  tried 
to  recall  whatever  he  had  heard  of  the  rela 
tive  safety  of  different  classes  of  security. 
He  guessed  at  the  amount  of  commission  he 
would  be  obliged  to  pay  a  broker,  his  guide 
being  a  confused  remembrance  that  in  a  play 
he  had  heard  a  certain  rate  mentioned.  He 
carefully  tabulated  his  investments,  and  re 
tired  at  length,  the  possessor  of  an  income 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA.        211 

of  something  over  $11,000,  all  commissions 
having  been  paid. 

It  was  perhaps  not  strange  that  Barum 
was  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the  fact,  since 
a  knowledge  of  the  vagaries  of  the  stock 
market  was  decidedly  outside  of  his  world, 
but  the  truth  was  that  he  had  begun  to  man 
age  his  fancied  fortunes  on  a  falling  market 
when  the  bears  were  raging  in  Wall  Street. 
While  he  slept  that  night  a  combination  was 
being  completed  which  was  the  next  day  to 
run  down  twenty-five  per  cent  the  conserva 
tive  railroad  stock  in  which  West  had  felt  it 
safe  to  put  half  his  fairy  gold.  \Vhen  Barum 
took  up  the  paper  at  the  restaurant  on  the 
third  evening  he  had  lost  about  $40,000,  — a 
fact  which  could  hardly  have  caused  him 
more  chagrin  had  he  really  possessed  the 
money  to  lose. 

The  game  he  was  playing  interested  him 
like  a  new  novel.  His  quick  imagination 
had  taken  fire,  and  this  defeat  spurred  him 
to  a  fresh  endeavor.  He  felt  himself  in 
honor  bound  to  regain  what  he  had  lost; 
and  this  evening  went  like  the  last,  in  com 
plicated  and  decidedly  amateurish  efforts  to 
bring  his  imaginary  finances  into  a  satisfac 
tory  condition.  The  writing  of  the  play  of 
which  he  was  to  read  the  skeleton  to  the 


212  A  BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

manager  in  a  fortnight  advanced  not  at  all. 
He  took  his  pen  to  write,  and  laid  it  down 
to  refresh  his  memory  on  the  latest  quotation 
on  some  stock ;  he  tried  to  think  of  his  plot, 
and  found  himself  reflecting  concerning  de 
benture  bonds  and  second  mortgages,  with 
the  vaguest  possible  notion  of  what  either 
might  be. 

The  strange  possession  which  a  vivid  fancy 
may  take  of  a  lonely  and  imaginative  mind 
is  a  phenomenon  not  unfamiliar  to  those  who 
have  studied  the  lives  of  men  of  fervid  tem 
perament;  and  the  whim  to  which  West  now 
gave  himself  up  was  no  more  extravagant 
than  many  another  which  has  had  conse 
quences  far  more  serious.  For  days  he  went 
on,  becoming  more  and  more  completely  en 
grossed  by  the  folly  he  was  following.  His 
writing-table  was  covered  with  papers  upon 
which  he  had  memoranda  of  stocks,  of 
sales,  of  investments,  calculations  of  com 
missions,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  He  even 
thought  of  going  down  town  to  watch  the 
bulletin  boards  at  some  broker's,  but  he 
would  hardly  have  been  the  fanciful  dreamer 
he  was,  had  he  not  shrunk  from  actually 
coming  in  contact  with  men  and  the  reality 
of  the  business  at  which  he  played. 

For  a  week  this  absurdity  continued.    Some- 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA.        213 

times  West  gained  a  little  in  his  visionary 
speculations,  and  this  inspired  him  with  new 
courage,  although  whether  he  won  or  lost  he 
was  still  possessed  with  the  fatal  gambling 
mania.  His  work  meanwhile  was  not  ad 
vancing.  It  is  true  that  he  sat  for  hours  at 
his  table  nominally  at  work  upon  his  play? 
but  he  interrupted  himself  constantly  to  con 
sider  whether  there  were  not  some  way  of  re 
covering  the  money  he  had  lost. 

When  Saturday  night  came  he  looked  back 
over  his  week  with  regret  and  shame.  The 
date  fixed  for  his  presenting  his  sketch  to  the 
manager  was  now  only  eight  days  off,  and  he 
was  practically  no  further  advanced  in  his 
preparation  than  on  the  day  when  his  friend 
brought  him  the  delightful  news  that  that 
elusive  personage  had  consented  to  make 
the  appointment.  He  had  wasted  the  past 
week  in  a  foolish  day-dream,  as  profitless  as 
it  was  absurd.  Yet  he  smiled  to  himself  at 
the  reflection  that  his  day-dream  had  at  least 
been  amusing.  It  had  been  like  creating  a 
story  or  the  plot  for  a  play ;  and  with  a  char 
acteristically  bachelor  thought,  he  added  to 
himself  that  it  was  at  least  less  dangerous 
to  play  with  visions  of  fortune  than  of  love, 
and  quite  as  sensible. 

He  could  not,  on  the  whole,  however,  be 


214  A  BOOK  O  NINE    TALES. 

satisfied  with  the  result  of  his  week,  and  he 
determined  to  have  no  more  of  this  folly. 
He  must  set  to  work  in  earnest,  and  he  re 
sented  the  consciousness  which  forced  itself 
upon  him  that  his  lonely  life  and  imaginative 
turn  made  it  possible  for  him  to  fall  into  va 
garies  which  to  the  practical  common-sense  of 
mankind  in  general  would  be  held  to  indicate 
anything  but  a  sound  mind.  He  started  up 
suddenly  and  gathered  all  the  papers  upon 
which  were  recorded  his  unlucky  stock  trans 
actions,  and  began  to  thrust  them  into  the 
stove.  He  would  make  an  end  of  the  whole 
foolish  business.  And  yet,  so  far  from  en 
tirely  burning  his  ships,  he  at  least  left  for 
himself  a  little  boat  in  which  to  continue  his 
explorations  into  the  delusive  regions  of 
financial  fairy-land,  since  he  saved  the  one 
slip  which  contained  the  statement  of  the 
present  condition  of  his  much-diminished 
fortune.  He  condescended  to  the  weak,  but 
eminently  human  trick  of  attempting  to  hum 
bug  himself  in  regard  to  his  reasons  for  doing 
so.  He  said  to  himself,  exactly  as  if  he  were 
explaining  to  another  person,  that  the  bit  of 
paper  would  serve  as  a  warning  to  him, 
should  he  ever  be  tempted  to  indulge  in  so 
idiotic  a  diversion  again;  and  he  added,  as  if 
to  quiet  the  least  suspicion  that  he  meant  to 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA.        21$ 

use  the  memorandum,  that  the  morrow  being 
Sunday  there  would  be  no  market  with  which 
he  could  play. 

And  yet,  so  weak  is  human  resolution,  such 
a  rope  of  sand  is  it  to  fetter  the  resistless 
progress  of  character,  —  which  is  destiny, — 
that  the  next  evening  found  West  with  the 
Sunday  paper  spread  before  him,  carefully 
studying  the  financial  article,  and  elaborating 
his  plans  for  a  grand  coup,  by  which  he 
should  regain  all  the  thousands  he  had  lost. 
He  had  become  very  canny  during  the  week's 
study  of  the  market  reports,  and  he  felt  this 
Sunday  evening  all  the  pleasant  satisfaction 
of  one  who,  out  of  sight,  cunningly  devises 
the  overthrow  of  clever  enemies.  On  Mon 
day  morning  he  would  —  in  imagination,  of 
course  —  go  into  the  field  with  a  shrewdly 
devised  scheme  of  buying  and  selling,  which 
should  result  in  the  triumphant  re-establish 
ment  of  his  financial  standing.  When  one  is 
dealing  with  life  in  imagination  merely  there 
is  of  course  no  limit  to  the  extent  to  which 
one  may  make  himself  master  of  events  ;  and 
parth'  from  a  keen  fancy,  partly  from  pure 
naivete,  West's  plan  involved  nothing  less  than 
bulling  the  market  himself  upon  his  visionary 
capital,  now  shrunken  to  some  $70,000. 

All  day  Monday  West  was  in  a  state  of  ex- 


2l6  A  BOOK  a  NINE    TALES. 

citement  which  was  amazingly  absurd  when 
one  considers  that  the  cause  was  wholly 
fancy.  When  a  drunkard  returns  to  his  cups 
he  is  notoriously  more  intemperate  than  be 
fore,  and  in  delivering  himself  up  for  a  sec 
ond  time  to  the  intoxication  of  his  vagaries 
Barum  plunged  more  recklessly  than  ever 
into  its  extravagances.  On  Tuesday  he  was 
once  more  to  be  rich,  and  then  he  would 
speculate  no  more.  Safe  mortgages  and 
government  bonds  should  suffice  him  as  in 
vestments,  even  though  the  rate  of  interest 
they  paid  was  low.  He  would  not  again  ex 
pose  himself  to  the  chances  of  such  feverish 
excitement  as  that  in  which  he  had  spent  the 
past  week. 

So  real  had  the  whole  business  become  to 
him  that,  while  he  smiled  at  his  own  folly 
as  he  took  up  the  Tuesday  evening  paper, 
he  actually  felt  a  pang  of  disappointment  to 
discover  that  his  imaginary  operations  had 
produced  no  effect  on  the  stock  market.  So 
far  from  rising,  stocks  had  that  day  gone  al 
most  out  of  sight,  so  great  had  been  the  fall 
in  the  price  of  securities  of  all  sorts. 

A  feeling  almost  of  despair  came  over  the 
young  man  as  he  read.  He  had  gone  out 
into  the  street  to  buy  the  earliest  edition 
which  would  contain  the  account  of  the  sales 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA.         21 7 

that  day,  and  as  he  walked  toward  his  attic 
he  experienced  almost  as  sharp  a  pang  as  if 
the  absolute  wreck  which  he  found  had  over 
taken  his  imaginary  fortune  had  befallen  a 
genuine  bank-account.  That  unreasonable 
youthful  disappointment  which  arises  from 
a  sense  of  failure  per  se,  with  little  reference 
to  the  real  importance  of  the  stake,  stung  him 
keenly;  and  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  can 
not  but  confound  real  and  aesthetic  grievances. 
He  returned  to  his  attic  and  figured  it  out. 
He  was  absolutely  and  hopelessly  ruined. 
He  had  not  only  lost  every  dollar  of  his 
imaginary  fortune,  but  he  was,  on  paper, 
some  seven  or  eight  hundred  dollars  in  debt 
to  his  brokers  for  commissions.  He  was  so 
overwhelmed  by  this  catastrophe  that  he  sat 
brooding  over  it  in  the  darkness  of  the  Feb 
ruary  twilight  and  gathering  night,  until  it 
was  far  past  the  hour  when  he  usually  took 
his  apology  for  a  dinner.  He  was  not  with 
out  a  sense  of  humor  sufficiently  vivid  to 
make  him  laugh  at  himself,  and  mentally 
mock  at  the  vexation  which  the  result  of 
his  airy  speculations  caused  him;  but  this 
did  not  prevent  his  being  vexed,  or  take 
his  thoughts  from  laborious  calculations  how 
a  different  result  might  have  been  reached. 
He  went  off  to  dinner  at  last  with  a  sober 


21 8  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

and  abstracted  mien,  ordering  a  repast  even 
more  economical  than  usual,  as  befitted  one 
who  had  just  lost  his  whole  fortune  in  ill- 
starred  speculation. 

It  was  his  custom  to  time  his  visit  to  the 
restaurant  so  as  to  cline  before  the  crowd 
of  customers  came  for  their  evening  meal. 
To-night,  however,  he  was  behind  them. 
The  place  was  no  fuller  than  he  usually 
found  it,  but  it  bore  signs  of  the  recent 
crush.  The  cloth  of  the  table  was  crumpled 
and  soiled,  the  glass  in  which  the  inevitable 
ice-water  was  poured  was  yet  warm  from 
being  washed,  while  the  evening  paper  the 
waiter  gave  him  was  adorned  with  an  irregu 
lar  stain  of  coffee.  In  the  midst  of  the  brown 
blotch  of  this  stain  was  a  patch  undiscolored; 
and  by  one  of  those  odd  and  improbable  co 
incidences  of  which  life  is  full,  in  the  midst 
of  this  spot  of  dingy  white  Barum  West  once 
more  caught  sight  of  his  own  name.  The 
whimsical  fate  which  had  started  the  fantastic 
train  of  thought  in  his  mind  ten  days  before 
now  finished  its  work  by  a  paragraph  stating 
that  the  will  by  which  $2OO,OOO  had  been 
bequeathed  to  Barum  West  by  Richard  Gran 
ger,  of  Chicago,  was  now  found  to  antedate 
a  second  testament  by  which  the  money  was 
left  to  Harvard  College. 


BARUM   WESTS  EXTRAVAGANZA.         2ig 

Barum  West  went  home  with  the  light  step 
of  a  boy.  A  great  responsibility  seemed  sud 
denly  lifted  from  his  shoulders.  The  capri 
cious  fancy  which  had  insisted  that  he  should 
be  depressed  because  he  had  lost  an  imagi 
nary  fortune  had  apparently  been  willing  to 
accept  the  fact  that  even  in  hypothesis  the 
possession  of  the  money  had  been  a  mistake, 
and  the  unlucky  speculator  was  formally  ac 
quitted  at  the  bar  of  his  inner  consciousness. 
He  lit  his  lamp  and  his  pipe,  seated  himself 
in  his  chintz-covered  rocking-chair,  with  his 
heels  on  the  top  of  the  coal  stove,  and  rumi 
nated.  He  reflected  upon  the  fact  that  it 
was  only  five  days  before  he  was  to  meet 
the  manager,  and  nothing  was  done  in  the 
way  of  a  play  which  he  could  for  an  instant 
regard  as  at  all  satisfactory. 

"  Instead  of  writing  an  extravaganza,"  he 
thought,  with  mingled  amusement  and  self- 
reproach,  "  I  have  been  living  one." 

The  form  of  the  thought  struck  him  in 
stantly.  His  feet  came  down  to  the  floor 
with  a  crash,  and  in  his  excitement  his  pipe 
went  smashing  down  beside  them. 

"  By  Jove  !  "  he  cried  aloud,  "  I  have  it !  " 

And  the  plot  of  the  extravaganza,  which 
everybody  will  remember  as  being  so  suc 
cessful  the  following  winter,  "A  Speculator 


220  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

in  Air,"  and  which  set  Barum  West  on  his 
feet  financially,  was  only  a  properly  modified 
version  of  the  vagaries  in  which  the  author 
had  indulged  in  the  handling  and  the  losing 
of  his  imaginary  fortune.  •• 


A   BUSINESS   MEETING. 


A   BUSINESS   MEETING. 

{Certain  absurd,  not  to  say  malicious,  reports  hav 
ing  been  circulated  in  regard  to  the  meeting  held  by 
the  Kosedale  Sewing-Circle  io  decide  upon  the  time, 
place,  and  other  details  of  their  annual  spring  fair,  it 
is  deemed  but  simple  justice  to  the  estimable  ladies  who 
compose  that  body  to  give  an  accurate  and  unvarnished 
account  of  the  proceedings  on  that  occasion ;  and  the 
•writer  feels  that  not  only  will  such  a  narration  suffi 
ciently  silence  all  slanders,  but  that  it  will  as  well 
go  far  toward  a  triumphant  refutation  of  the  often- 
repeated  falsehood  that  women  have  no  aptitude  for 
business.  ] 

THE  meeting,  being  appointed  for  2.30  P.  M., 
was  called  to  order  by  the  president,  Mrs.  Gilflora 
Smithe,  at  3.30  p.  M.,  the  hour  preceding  having 
been  spent  in  an  animated  and  pleasant  discussion 
of  the  important  question  whether  the  pastor's 
wife,  who  was  detained  at  home  by  illness,  was 
really  so  extravagant  as  to  use  granulated  sugar  in 
her  sweet  pickles,  as  was  positively  asserted  by 
Miss  Araminta  Sharp.  The  secretary  read  the 
report  of  the  last  meeting,  as  follows  :  — 

"Monday,  April  7.  —  Meeting  called  to  order 
by  the  president.  The  records  read  and  approved. 
There  being  no  quorum  present,  it  was  unani- 


224  A   BOOK  O  NINE    TALES. 

mously  voted  to  hold  the  next  meeting  on  Thurs 
day,  as  that  day  is  more  convenient  for  the  ladies. 
On  motion  of  Mrs.  Percy  Browne,  voted  to  ap 
point  a  committee  of  one  to  take  charge  of  the 
Art  Department  of  the  fair.  Mrs.  Browne  kindly 
volunteered  to  serve  as  that  committee.  Ad 
journed." 

The  records  having  been  approved,  the  presi 
dent  remarked  that  there  was  so  much  business  to 
come  before  the  meeting  that  she  really  could  not 
tell  where  to  begin,  and  she  should  be  glad  if  some 
one  would  make  a  motion,  just  to  start  things. 

"A  motion  to  put  things  in  motion,"  murmured 
Miss  Keene,  looking  around  with  the  smile  which 
everybody  knew  meant  that  she  had  made  a  joke. 

Everybody  smiled  also,  although  nobody  saw 
the  point  until  the  president  echoed,  with  a  pleased 
air  of  discovery,  "  Motion, —  motion  !  Very  good, 
Miss  Keene." 

Then  they  all  smiled  once  again,  and  Miss  Gray 
told  of  an  excellent  jest  made  by  a  cousin  in 
Boston  :  — 

"My  cousin  in  Boston  —  that  is,  she  isn't  my 
real  cousin,  but  a  step-cousin  by  marriage  —  was 
at  a  concert  once,  and  she  made  an  awfully  good 
joke.  I  don't  remember  exactly  now  what  it  was, 
but  it  was  awfully  funny.  It  was  something  about 
music,  and  we  all  laughed." 

"  It  does  n't  seem  to  me,"  spoke  up  Miss  Sharp, 
acidly,  "  that  Boston  jokes  will  help  the  fair  much  ; 


A  BUSINESS  MEETING.  22$ 

and  I  move  you,  Mrs.  President,  —  if  I  don't  make 
a  motion,  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know  who  ever  will, — 
that  the  fair  be  held  on  the  2Oth  of  April." 

"  I  second  the  motion,"  promptly  spoke  up  Miss 
Snob,  who  always  seconded  everything. 

"  It  is  moved  and  seconded,"  said  the  president, 
"that  the  fair  be  held  on  the  2oth  of  April ;  but 
I  'm  sure  the  2jd  would  suit  me  a  great  deal 
better." 

"  Why  not  have  it  the  i  yth  ?  "  asked  Miss  Keene  ; 
"  that  seems  to  me  quite  late  enough." 

"  Oh,  dear,  no,"  interrupted  Mrs.  Percy  Browne, 
"  I  never  could  get  half  the  things  done  for  my 
department  by  that  time.  I  move  we  have  it  the 
30th." 

"Second  the  motion,"  promptly  responded  Miss 
Snob. 

"  It  is  moved  and  seconded,"  propounded  Mrs. 
Smithe  from  the  chair,  '•'  that  the  fair  be  held  on 
the  30th.  That  seems  to  me  an  excellent  time. 
If  it  be  your  minds,  you  will  please  to  signify  it. 
It  is  a  vote." 

"  I  still  stick  to  the  2Oth,"  declared  Miss  Sharp, 
viciously.  "  I  shall  open  my  candy-table  then, 
whether  the  rest  of  the  fair  is  ready  or  not." 

"  Sweets  to  the  sweet,"  murmured  Miss  Keene, 
looking  around  with  her  jest-announcing  smile. 

"The  2oth  is  Sunday,  any  way,"  observed  the 
Hon.  Mrs.  Sampson  Hoyt,  in  tones  of  great  con 
descension. 

'5 


226  A   BOOK  a  NINE    TALES. 

"  I  don't  care,"  persisted  the  contumacious 
Sharp.  "  I  '11  have  my  part  of  the  fair  then,  any 
way." 

"  Suppose  we  compromise,"  suggested  the  presi 
dent,  pacifically,  "and  say  the  25th." 

There  was  considerable  discussion,  more  or  less 
acrimonious,  at  this  proposition,  but  it  was  finally 
adopted  without  the  formality  of  a  vote,  the  sec 
retary  being  instructed  to  set  the  date  April  25th 
down  as  the  final  decision  of  the  meeting. 

"  There  will  have  to  be  a  general  committee  of 
arrangements,"  the  president  observed,  this  im 
portant  preliminary  having  been  settled.  "  I  sup 
pose  it  is  customary  for  the  chair  to  appoint  them  ; 
but  I  am  ready  to  receive  nominations." 

"  I  nominate  Miss  Keene,"  said  Mrs.  Browne, 
who  wished  to  keep  in  that  lady's  good  graces. 

"  Second  the  motion,"  Miss  Snob  exclaimed, 
with  enthusiasm. 

"  Miss  Keene  will  have  enough  to  do  at  the 
cake-table,"  Mrs.  Smithe  replied.  "  I  think  I  '11 
appoint  Mrs.  Hoyt,  Mrs.  Growler,  Mrs.  Henderson, 
and  Mrs.  Lowell." 

"  There  's  never  but  three  on  that  committee," 
snapped  Miss  Sharp.  •'  You  '11  have  to  take  off 
one." 

"  Dear  me  !  "  responded  Mrs.  Smithe,  in  dismay ; 
"  I  think  you  must  be  mistaken." 

But  Miss  Sharp  persisted,  and  the  president, 
driven  into  a  corner,  was  forced  to  propose  that 


A  BUSINESS  MEETING.  22? 

one  of  the  ladies  named  should  resign.  Nobody 
seemed  willing  to  do  this,  however,  and  it  was  at 
length  decided  that  some  one  of  the  four  should 
regard  herself  as  a  substitute,  to  act  in  case  one  of 
the  others  could  not  serve.  The  president  could 
not,  however,  bring  herself  to  specify  which  should 
be  the  substitute,  and  was  greatly  relieved  when 
the  conversation  was  turned  by  Mrs.  Henderson's 
remarking,  — 

"  Speaking  of  substitutes  reminds  me.  Did  you 
know  that  you  could  make  mince-pies  without 
meat?  My  niece  from  Bangor — " 

[The  talk  of  the  next  fifteen  minutes  is  omitted,  as 
being  irrelevant,  relating  exclusively  to  cooking.  At 
the  expiration  of  that  time,  the  business  of  the  occasion 
was  accidentally  reintroduced  by  an  allusion  on  the 
part  of  Mrs.  Crowler  to  some  delicious  chocolate  mac 
aroons  'which  she  had  eaten  at  a  fair  in  East  Macliias.~\ 

''  We  really  must  have  some  more  committees," 
the  president  said,  recovering  herself  with  a  start. 
"Will  somebody  make  a  motion?  " 

"  I  don't  think  P>iday  is  a  good  day  for  a  fair, 
any  way,"  Mrs.  Lowell  now  remarked,  reflectively. 
"The  25th  is  Friday." 

"Oh.  I  never  thought  of  that,"  exclaimed  half  a 
dozen  ladies,  in  dismay.  "  We  should  be  all  tired 
out  for  baking-day." 

'•  I  don't  know  what  we  can  do,"  the  president 
said,  in  despairing  accents,  —  "  there  seem  to  be 
so  many  days,  and  only  one  fair ;  and  we  Ve  had 


228  A   BOOK   a   NINE    TALES. 

so  many  dates  proposed.     We  shall  have  to  unvote 
something." 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Sampson 
Hoyt  rose  to  the  heights  of  the  parliamentary 
opportunity. 

"  I  move  the  previous  question,"  she  said,  dis 
tinctly  and  firmly. 

There  fell  a  hush  of  awe  over  the  sewing-circle, 
and  even  Miss  Snob  was  a  moment  in  bringing  out 
her  second. 

"  I  don't  think  !  "  Mrs.  President  Smithe  ven 
tured,  a  little  falteringly,  "  that  I  quite  understood 
the  motion." 

"  I  moved,"  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Hoyt  replied,  with 
the  air  of  one  conscious  that  her  husband  had 
once  been  almost  nominated  to  the  State  Legisla 
ture,  and  had  been  addressed  as  Honorable  ever 
after,  "  I  moved  the  previous  question." 

"Yes?"  Mrs.  Smithe  said,  inquiringly  and 
pleadingly. 

"That  takes  everything  back  to  the  beginning," 
Mrs.  Hoyt  condescended  to  explain,  "  and  we  can 
then  change  the  date  of  our  fair  in  a  strictly  legal 
way." 

She  threw  a  glance  of  superb  scorn  around  her 
as  she  spoke,  and  even  Miss  Sharp  took  on  a 
subdued  and  corrected  air. 

"It  is  moved  and  seconded  the  previous  ques 
tion,"  Mrs.  Smithe  propounded,  with  an  air  of 
great  relief.  "  It  is  a  vote." 


A  BUSINESS  MEETING.  229 

"  I  don't  think  we  had  better  do  away  with 
everything  in  this  case,"  Mrs.  Hoyt  observed,  with 
a  smile  of  gracious  concession.  "  We  might  let 
the  committee  of  arrangements  stand." 

"That  she's  chairman  of,"  whispered  Mrs. 
Growler,  spitefully. 

"  I  don't  remember,"  observed  Miss  Sharp, 
gazing  into  futurity  with  an  air  of  abstraction, 
"  that  there  is  anything  in  the  by-laws  about  the 
previous  question." 

A  flutter  stirred  the  entire  company.  The 
ladies  looked  at  each  other,  and  then  with  one 
accord  turned  their  regards  upon  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Hoyt,  as  one  who,  having  got  them  into  this 
difficulty,  was  in  honor  bound  to  help  them  out 
of  it. 

"  I  supposed  everybody  knew,"  that  lady  re 
marked,  with  icy  sweetness,  "  that  the  rules  of 
making  motions  do  not  have  to  be  in  the  by-laws. 
They  are  in" •  —  the  speaker  hesitated,  not  being 
exactly  sure  of  the  title  of  the  volume  to  which 
her  husband  had  given  so  careful  attention  when 
expecting  to  be  nominated  :  feeling,  however,  that 
anything  was  better  than  the  appearance  of  igno 
rance,  she  went  on  precipitately  —  "in  '  Pole's 
Manual.'  " 

Even  Miss  Sharp  had  no  retort  adequate  to 
meet  this  crushing  appeal  to  authority,  not  being 
sufficiently  well  informed  to  connect  Pole  with 
whist,  so  she  contented  herself  by  observing,  with 


230  A   BOOK   O'  NINE   TALES. 

a  sniff,  that  for  her  part  she  was  glad  she  did  not 
know  so  much  as  some  people  pretended  to. 

"  It  does  seem  to  me,"  observed  Mrs.  Hen 
derson,  at  this  point,  "  that  we  might  let  this  one 
year  go  by  without  a  fair.  There  's  been  so  much 
sickness  in  Rosedale  this  winter  that  everybody  is 
tired  out,  and  we  had  a  great  deal  better  wait  till 
June,  and  have  a  strawberry- festival.  I  move  we 
put  the  whole  thing  off  till  then." 

"  Second  the  motion,"  cried  Miss  Snob,  with 
great  promptitude. 

"I  cannot  consent  to  put  that  motion,"  the  pres 
ident  said,  with  great  dignity.  "  We  have  made 
up  our  minds  to  have  a  fair  now,  and  we  might 
as  well  have  it,  and  be  done  with  it." 

"  I  move,"  Mrs.  Browne  put  in  sweetly,  with  the 
intention  of  suiting  everybody,  "  that  we  have  a 
fair  and  a  strawberry-festival." 

Miss  Snob  seconded  this  motion  with  her  cus 
tomary  enthusiasm. 

"  It  is  moved  and  seconded,"  the  president  said, 
"  that  we  have  a  fair  and  a  strawberry-festival. 
But  that  seems  a  great  deal ;  and  I  think  I  had 
better  declare  it  not  a  vote,  unless  doubted." 

Nobody  was  clear  about  the  effects  of  doubting 
a  negative  proposition ;  but  Mrs.  Growler  was 
pleased  to  observe,  "  Well,  any  way,  now  I  come 
to  think  it  over,  I  think,  on  the  whole,  I  won't  be 
on  the  arrangements  committee  at  all ;  but  I  '11  be 
chairman  of  the  finance  committee  when  that  is 


A   BUSINESS  MEETING.  231 

fixed,  —  and  that  '11  leave  only  three  on  the  ar 
rangements." 

This  moved  Mrs.  Henderson  to  resign,  and  Mrs. 
Lowell  following  her  example,  Mrs.  Hoyt  was  left 
in  solitary  grandeur  upon  the  committee. 

Matters  were  not  improved,  moreover,  when 
Miss  Keene  remarked,  "  If  we  've  voted  '  the  pre 
vious  question,'  I  don't  see  but  we  Ve  still  got  to 
fix  the  day.  All  that  is  undone  now." 

"  Certainly,"  responded  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Sampson 
Hoyt,  with  the  virtuous  joy  of  an  iconoclast  gazing 
on  the  ruin  he  has  wrought. 

"  We  don't  seem  to  have  anything  exactly  fixed," 
the  president  said,  with  a  helpless  and  conciliatory 
smile.  "  If  somebody  would  make  a  motion  —  " 

"  It 's  too  late  to  make  any  more  motions  to-day," 
Miss  Sharp  interrupted,  with  much  vigor.  "  It 's 
ten  minutes  of  six." 

At  this  announcement  of  the  lateness  of  the 
hour,  the  entire  company  started  to  their  feet  in 
dismay ;  and  although,  when  the  president  and 
secretary  tried  next  day  to  remember  what  had 
been  done,  that  the  latter  might  make  up  her 
report,  they  recorded  that  the  meeting  adjourned, 
that  statement  must  be  regarded  as  having  been 
purely  a  parliamentary  fiction,  entered  in  the  sec 
retary's  book  to  gratify  that  instinct  innate  in 
woman's  breast  to  follow  exactly  the  regular  and 
strictest  forms  of  recognized  rules  of  order. 


A   SKETCH    IN   UMBER. 


A    SKETCH   IN   UMBER. 

[VERY  life  has  its  history:  this  is 
the  story  of  Ruth  Welch,  the 
placid-faced,  silver-haired  woman 
who  sat  in  the  September  twilight 
looking  out  over  the  moorlands  one  Saturday 
evening,  and  considering  many  things. 

The  house  faced  toward  the  south.  It 
looked  across  a  little  creek  which  made  in 
from  the  sea,  and  it  had  in  its  prospect  only 
level  heaths  to  the  horizon's  edge.  On  the 
west  stretched  the  waters  of  an  arm  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  the  tides  came  twice  a  day 
around  the  low  cape  into  the  inlet,  and  the 
wind  blew  over  the  moors ;  but  in  all  di 
rections  one  looked  upon  level  wastes,  —  "the 
plains,"  the  country  people  called  them, 
speaking  of  them  sometimes  as  "  Welch's 
bogs,"  or  in  sections  as  the  "blueb'ry  plains," 
or  the  "cramb'ry  marshes;  "  and  people  who 
lived  outside  of  them  regarded  the  moors  as 
painfully  dull. 

They  were  not,  too,  without  some  excuse 
for  such  an  opinion.  The  rhodora  and  the 


236  A   BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

kalmia  —  the  "  lamb-kill" -— in  spring  spread 
over  sections  of  the  waste  transient  sheets  of 
glowing  color,  but  for  the  most  part  the 
country  was  either  white  or  brown,  and  to 
one  not  fond  of  it  the  effect  of  the  monotone 
of  hue  was  depressing.  The  shade  of  brown 
varied,  changing  from  a  grayish  or  even 
greenish  brown  in  midsummer  to  a  sombre, 
almost  uniform  umber  in  autumn,  which  lat 
ter  tint  now  and  then  during  the  winter  ap 
peared  in  desolate  patches  through  the  flats  of 
snow,  until  in  March  the  whole  plain  came  to 
light  darker  and  more  forbidding  than  ever. 

O  O 

All  these  long  months  the  only  break  in 
the  low  monochrome  of  the  landscape  was 
the  red  cottage  which  still  was  called  "  Gran'- 
sii"  Welch's,"  although  the  old  man  had  been 
dead  many  a  year,  and  the  little  garden  be 
fore  it  that  kept  up,  with  old-fashioned  flow 
ers,  a  show  of  bravery  until  the  frosts  came. 
The  tint  of  the  old  house  was  dull  and  dingy, 
but  in  so  colorless  a  setting  the  hue  seemed 
brighter,  as  a  single  event  might  assume  un 
due  importance  in  a  monotonous  life.  If  one 
could  have  supposed  the  builder  an  imagina 
tive  man  or  one  given  to  refinements  of  senti 
ment,  it  might  be  easy  to  imagine  that  when 
lie  built  his  house  thus  alone  in  the  plains, 
with  not  another  dwelling  in  sight  and  with- 


A  SKETCH  IN   UMBER.  237 

out  a  break  in  the  level  landscape,  he  felt  the 
need  of  giving  it  some  color  that  should  pro 
test  against  the  deadly  grayness  of  all  around 
and  hearten  its  owner  by  its  warmth  of  tone. 

So  overwhelming  were  the  solitude  and  the 
unbroken  sameness  of  the  place,  however, 
that  an  imaginative  man  would  scarcely  have 
chosen  it  as  an  abiding-place,  although  once 
involved  in  its  powerful  fascination  he  would 
have  been  held  to  his  life's  end.  By  what 
accident  Gran'sir'  Welch's  grandfather  had 
chosen  to  build  here,  half  a  score  of  miles 
from  the  little  fishing  village  which  stood  to 

o  o 

the  people  of  that  region  for  the  world,  no 
one  knew,  and  very  likely  no  one  cared- 
Folk  thereabout  concerned  themselves  little 
with  reasons  for  anything,  facts  being  all  they 
found  mental  grasp  sufficient  to  hold.  Once 
established  in  the  plains,  however,  there  was 
no  especial  cause  to  suppose  the  family  would 
not  continue  to  live  on  there  until  its  course 
was  interrupted  either  by  extinction  or  by 
the  arrival  of  the  Judgment-Day, 

Extinction  was  not  very  far  off  now,  since 
only  this  white-haired  woman  remained  to 
bear  the  name.  Her  mother  had  died  in  the 
daughter's  infancy.  Mrs.  Welch  had  never 
adapted  herself  to  the  silence  and  loneliness 
of  the  moors,  and  her  people  over  at  the 


238  A  BOOK  O'   NINE   TALES. 

village  declared  that  she  had  "  died  of  the 
plains ;  "  and  it  is  possible  that  they  were 
right.  Ruth's  father,  when  she  was  still  but 
a  child,  had  been  lost  at  sea;  and  the  girl 
had  been  cared  for  by  her  grandfather  and 
the  old  serving-woman  Bethiah,  who  had  once 
been  supposed  to  be  a  hired  girl,  but  had 
ended  by  being  so  thoroughly  identified  with 
the  family  that  her  surname  was  wellnigh 
forgotten,  and  she  was  designated,  when  she 

o  o 

was  spoken  of  at  all,  as  Bethiah  Welch. 

The  child  grew  much  in  the  same  way  as 
grew  the  houseleeks  in  the  boxes  beside  the 

& 

southern  door,  very  slowly  and  dully.  Once 
or  twice  she  went  for  a  few  months  to  stay 
with  an  aunt  in  the  village  ten  miles  away,  it 
being  the  unanimous  opinion  of  her  relatives 
that  as  the  Welches  always  had  known  how 
to  read  and  write  it  was  proper  that  some 
thing  should  be  done  for  Ruth's  education ; 
and  the  village  school  was  the  only  educa 
tional  means  known  in  the  region.  The  girl 
pined  for  home,  however,  and  was  never  con 
tent  away  from  the  red  house.  Perhaps  by  a 
strange  perversity  of  circumstance  the  home- 
longing  of  the  mother  was  in  the  child  trans 
formed  into  a  clinging  fondness  for  the  place 
where  the  former  was  so  lonely  and  alien. 
The  low,  level  moors  were  necessary  to 


A  SKETCH  IN  UMBER  239 

Ruth's  life;  in  their  colorless  monotony  she 
somehow  found  the  complement  for  her  un 
eventful  life.  Perhaps  the  very  dulness  de 
veloped  her  imagination,  as  special  organs 
appear  in  animals  whose  abnormal  conditions 
of  existence  render  them  needful.  If  this 
were  so,  it  was  no  less  true  that  the  moors 
absorbed  whatever  mental  life  they  stimu 
lated,  until  the  girl  seemed  hardly  less  a  part 
of  them  than  the  knolls  of  leathery  shrubs, 
the  scattered,  shallow  pools,  the  tufts  of  coarse 
grass,  or  the  whispering  voices  of  the  wind 
which  all  night  long  and  every  night  were  hur 
rying  to  and  fro,  concerned  with  unspeakable 
tidings  which  perhaps  came  from  the  sea  that 
forever  moaned  along  the  moorland's  edges. 

Little  conscious  imagination  had  Ruth  at 
nineteen ;  and  it  was  at  nineteen  that  the 
single,  trifling  event  of  her  life  occurred. 
She  was  a  maiden  by  no  means  uncomely. 
She  was  not  educated  in  any  conventional 
sense  of  the  term  ;  but  her  life  alone  with  her 
grandfather  and  old  Bethiah  and  the  great 
brown  moors  had  bred  in  her  a  certain  sweet 
gravity  which  was  not  without  its  charm, 
had  there  been  but  those  to  see  who  could 
appreciate  it. 

Along  the  front  of  the  house  ran  a  bench, 
where  people  seldom  sat,  since  there  were 


240  A  BOOK   O'   NINE    TALF.S. 

none  to  sit,  but  where  the  milk-pans  dried  in 
the  sun,  a  gleaming  row ;  and  one  sunny  morn 
ing  late  in  September  the  flash  of  their  shim 
mer  caught  the  eye  of  a  skipper  who  in  his 
yacht  in  the  bay  studied  the  horizon  with  his 
glass.  He  was  not  yet  past  those  years  when 
a  man  still  finds  amusement  in  imitating  fate 
and  nature  by  yielding  to  his  impulses ;  the 
gleam  suggested  pleasant  draughts  of  fresh 
milk;  and  without  more  ado,  he  headed  the 
trig  little  craft  in  which  he  and  a  brother 
artist  were  skirting  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of 
Maine  for  the  little  inlet  upon  which  Gran'sir 
Welch's  red  cottage  stood. 

In  those  days  yachts  were  less  common 
than  now,  and  both  Ruth  and  Bethiah  left 
their  work  to  watch  the  boat  as  it  ran  up  to 
the  low  wharf,  and  the  snowy  sail  fell  with  a 
musical  rattle  and  clash  of  metallic  rings. 

The  skipper,  a  stalwart  young  fellow,  too 
handsome  by  half,  came  briskly  ashore  and 
did  his  errand,  and  while  the  old  servant 
went  for  the  milk,  stood  with  Ruth  by  the 
open  door  asking  idle  questions,  to  which  she 
replied  without  either  shyness  or  boldness 
His  eyes  were  just  on  a  level  with  hers  as  she 
stood  on  the  threshold  above  him,  and  their 
bold,  merry  glance  saw  with  full  appreciation 
how  clear  were  her  sherry-brown  orbs.  He 


A  SKETCH  IN   UMBF.R  241 

removed  his  cap  and  leaned  against  the 
door-post,  letting  his  glance  stray  over  the 
landscape.  Here  and  there  upon  the  brown 
surface  his  keen  eye  detected  the  flame  of  a 
scarlet  leaf  amid  the  prevailing  russet,  but  the 
combined  effect  of  all  the  red  leaves  upon 
the  plain  could  not  warm  the  sombre  wastes. 

"Don't  you  get  tired  of  the  sameness?" 
he  asked  suddenly,  as  if  the  monotony  all  at 
once  seemed  to  him  too  great  to  be  borne. 

"  Oh,  no,"  Ruth  answered,  smiling  faintly, 
"  I  like  it." 

He  brushed  back  his  curly,  golden  locks 
with  a  shapely  brown  hand,  and  regarded  her 
more  closely. 

"  It  is  like  a  fish  in  the  water,"  was  his 
conclusion  when  he  spoke  again.  "  It  would 
drown  me." 

Ruth  smiled  again,  showing  her  white,  even 
teeth  a  little,  although  she  did  not  in  the 
least  understand  what  he  meant ;  and  before 
the  conversation  could  go  further  Bethiah 
appeared  with  the  milk  she  had  been  getting. 
Ruth  put  aside  the  stranger's  offer  of  pay, 
and  with  an  instinct  of  hospitality  which  must 
have  been  genuine  indeed  to  have  survived 
so  long  disuse  from  lack  of  opportunity,  she 
stepped  down  into  the  little  garden-plot  and 
picked  a  nosegay  of  the  old-fashioned  flowers 
16 


242  A   BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

which  in  the  southern  exposure  were  still 
unharmed  by  frost. 

"  Put  a  posy  in  my  button-hole,"  he  re 
quested  lightly,  when  she  gave  them  to  him. 
"  Pick  out  the  prettiest." 

She  had  never  stuck  a  flower  in  a  man's 
coat,  but  she  was  too  utterly  devoid  of  self- 
consciousness  to  be  shy.  She  selected  a 
beautiful  clove  pink,  and  smiling  her  grave 
smile,  thrust  the  stem  through  the  button 
hole  of  his  yachting-jacket  as  he  held  out 
the  lapel. 

"  It  would  be  just  the  color  of  your  cheeks," 
he  said,  "  if  it  could  only  get  sunburned." 

A  redder  glow  flushed  up  at  his  words, 
and  so  tempting  was  the  innocent  face  be 
fore  him  that  half  involuntarily  he  bent  for 
ward  to  kiss  the  smooth  lips.  The  girl  drew 
back,  in  that  grave,  unemotional  fashion  of 
hers  which  was  to  the  stranger  so  unaccount 
able  at  once  and  so  fascinating,  and  he  failed 
of  his  intent. 

"Ah,  well,"  he  said,  in  nowise  disconcerted, 
"  keep  the  kiss  for  your  sweetheart,  but  thank 
you  for  the  flowers." 

He  laughed  with  a  gleeful,  deep-toned  note, 
and  turned  down  the  faintly-defined  path  to 
the  shore  again. 

Ruth  looked  on  with  interest  at  the  hoist- 


A  SKETCH  IN  UMBER.  243 

ing  of  the  sail ;  she  smiled  responsively  as  the 
t\vo  mariners  doffed  their  caps  to  her,  and 
then,  regardless  of  the  old  superstition  of  the 
ill-luck  of  watching  people  out  of  sight,  she 
kept  her  eyes  fixed  upon  the  pretty  little 
craft  as  it  skimmed  over  the  waters,  as  long 
as  it  could  be  seen.  Then  she  turned  a  com 
prehensive  glance  over  all  her  moors,  as  if  to 
to  take  them  into  confidence  regarding  the 
pleasant  incident  which  had  just  happened, 
and  returned  to  her  interrupted  domestic 
duties.  The  interview  had  touched  her  with 
no  repinings;  and  even  could  she  have  known 
that  in  that  brief  moment  all  the  romance  of 
her  life  had  been  acted,  she  would  scarcely 
have  sighed.  She  smiled  as  she  went  about 
her  homely  occupations,  and  flushed  a  little 
with  the  consciousness  of  innocent  vanity  as 
she  found  herself  glancing  into  the  glass  at 
the  reflection  of  her  softly-glowing  cheeks, 
reddened  with  health  and  with  the  sun. 

This  September  day  was  the  single  glow 
ing  spot  in  the  slow,  mellow  years  of  Ruth's 
life.  She  came  and  went,  slept  and  waked, 
perhaps  even  dreamed.  She  was  always  in 
a  happy,  contented  repose  among  her  moors, 
becoming  of  them  every  day  more  and  more 
completely  a  part.  The  wide  plains  grew 
green  in  spring  with  transient  verdure,  the 


244  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

purple  petals  of  the  rhodora  flushed  through 
their  brief  day  and  dropped  into  the  shallow 
brown  pools  left  by  the  late  rains  in  the 
hollows;  then  all  the  waste  turned  to  fawn 
and  russet  under  the  suns  of  summer,  and 
the  cycle  of  the  year  was  completed  by  deep 
ening  browns  and  the  wide  stretches  of  snow. 
Now  and  again  great  rolling  masses  of  mist 
came  up  from  the  sea  and  hid  wold  and  wave 
alike  from  sight,  but  yet  the  sense  of  the 
plains  was  like  a  presence  to  Ruth,  as  with 
heart  warm  as  an  egg  beneath  the  mother- 
bird's  breast,  she  went  her  way  and  lived  her 
span  of  life. 

She  was  far  from  being  dull  in  her  feelings. 
Indeed,  for  one  in  her  station  and  surround 
ings,  she  was  unusually  sensitive  to  mood  of 
shore  and  sky,  to  the  beauty  of  the  sun 
sets  or  of  the  wild  flowers  which  sprang  amid 
the  low  shrubs.  She  was  simply  content. 
She  was  so  perfectly  in  harmony  with  her 
world  that  she  could  not  be  unhappy.  She 
grew  as  a  bluebell  grows.  She  was  not  de 
ficient  in  womanly  sentiment.  She  thought 
sometimes  of  the  handsome  sailor  lad  whose 
bold  brown  eyes  had  looked  into  hers,  and 
she  smiled  anew  with  simple  pleasure  that  he 
had  found  her  fair.  She  remembered  the  au 
dacious  gleam  which  crossed  his  face  when 


A  SKETCH  IN   UMBER.  245 

he  bent  forward  to  kiss  her,  and  she  did  not 
forget  his  words  about  a  sweetheart.  She 
never  spoke  of  her  memories,  —  she  came  of 
a  reticent  race,  and  neither  Gran'sir'  Welch 
nor  Bethiah  was  especially  adapted  to  the 
reception  of  confidences,  —  but  she  specu 
lated  concerning  the  sweetheart  she  never 
had,  and  of  whose  coming  fate  gave  no  sign. 
There  was  never  any  tinge  of  melancholy  in 
these  reflections.  She  accepted  life  too 
simply  to  be  sad,  even  with  that  vague  op 
pression  which  seemed  to  casual  observers 
the  obvious  consequence  of  the  overpowering 
presence  of  the  wastes. 

As  years  went  on,  she  accepted  the  fact  that 
the  time  of  dreams  of  love  was  past,  and  with 
placid  content  she  reflected  that  the  shadow 
of  the  ungiven  kiss  of  the  sailor  would  never 
be  disturbed  by  the  pressure  of  lover's  lips 
upon  hers. 

It  is  between  twenty  and  thirty  that  the 
temperament  of  a  woman  becomes  fixed,  and 
all  her  future  irrevocably  made  or  marred. 
Before  this  her  character  is  too  flexible,  after 
this  too  rigid  for  impressions  to  be  lasting. 
During  these  years  the  peace  of  the  wide, 
calm,  and  sombre  moorlands  stamped  indeli 
bly  upon  Ruth  a  sweet,  grave  content  which 
nothing  could  destroy  or  shake. 


246  A  BOOK  O'   NINE   TALES. 

There  came  a  time  when  into  the  calm  of 
the  old  house  death  rushed,  with  that  dreadful 
precipitancy  which  always  marks  his  coming, 
even  when  expected,  and  old  Gran'sir'  Welch, 
long  past  fourscore,  was,  in  the  quaint  lan 
guage  of  the  King  James  version,  gathered  to 
his  fathers. 

In  the  gray  dawn  Ruth  tapped  softly  at  the 
hives  of  the  bees  which  stood,  straw-thatched, 
against  the  eastern  end  of  the  cottage,  and 
announced  the  sad  news,  firmly  believing 
that  unless  within  twelve  hours  the  swarms 
were  told  of  death  they  would  desert  their 
homes.  Then  in  the  sunny  autumn  after 
noon  a  funeral  procession  of  boats  trailed 
from  the  red  cottage  to  the  graveyard  behind 
the  church  in  the  village,  where  slept  such  of 
his  forefathers  as  the  sea  had  spared  to  die  in 
their  beds.  With  evenly  dipping  oars  went 
first  the  quaintly-shaped  pinky  bearing  the 
coffin  between  two  stout  fisherman,  one  at 
prow  and  one  at  stern;  while  after  followed 
the  dories  in  which  were  the  few  nearer  rela 
tives  who  had  come  to  attend  the  services 
at  the  house. 

Ruth  sat  beside  a  cousin  and  listened  half 
unconsciously  to  the  plash  of  the  oars  and 
the  rhythmic  beat  of  the  waves  against  the 
boat,  looking  back  with  tear-dimmed  eyes  to 


A  SKETCH  IN   UMBER.  247 

the  red  house  until  it  was  by  distance  blended 
with  the  dun  country  as  the  last  spark  dies 
amid  the  ashes.  She  was  sad,  and  she  felt 
that  oppressive  terror  which  the  presence  of 
death  brings ;  yet  her  calm  was  not  seriously 
or  permanently  shaken. 

In  -their  relentless,  even  course  the  years 
moved  on,  and  one  day  in  spring,  when  the 
rhodora  was  in  all  its  glory,  and  the  one  bush 
of  mountain-laurel  in  the  wide  plains,  which 
had  strayed  into  the  heath  like  a  lamb  into 
the  wilderness,  was  as  white  in  the  distance 
as  a  bunch  of  upland  maybloom,  again  Ruth 
went  softly  and  gravely  to  tell  the  bees  that 
death  had  been  in  the  red  house,  and  the 
procession  of  boats,  like  the  Egyptian  train 
over  the  Lake  of  the  Dead,  bore  away  the 
mortal  remains  of  faithful  old  Bethiah. 

Ruth's  relatives  in  the  village  tried  to  in 
duce  her  now  to  come  to  them,  and  when  she 
could  not  be  moved  to  do  this,  urged  her  at 
least  to  have  some  one  live  with  her.  She 
was  getting  to  be  an  old  woman,  they  said 
among  themselves,  although  in  truth  she  was 
little  past  fifty,  and  since  for  that  part  of  the 
world  she  was  not  ill-provided  with  worldly 
goods,  there  was  no  lack  of  those  who  were 
willing  to  take  up  their  abode  as  her  com 
panion  in  the  red  house. 


248  A   BOOK  O'   NINE    TALES, 

Ruth  put  all.offers  aside,  —  kindly,  indeed, 
but  decisively.  She  was  pleased  to  live 
alone ;  not  from  a  misanthropic  dislike  of 
her  kind,  but  because  it  was  so  deep  and 
inexhaustible  a  delight  to  her  to  brood  hap 
pily  among  her  plains.  More  and  more  she 
loved  these  umber  wastes,  over  which  cloud- 
shadows  drifted  like  the  darkening  ripple  of 
the  wind  on  the  sea.  She  knew  all  their 
ways,  those  mysterious  paths  which  wind 
between  the  hillocks  of  deserted  heaths  as  if 
worn  with  the  constant  passing  of  invisible 
feet,  and  she  was  never  weary  of  wandering 
among  the  ragged  hummocks,  breathing  in 
the  salt  air  from  the  sea  and  noting  with 
happy  eyes  all  the  weeds  and  wild  flowers, 
the  shrubs  that  were  too  inconspicuous  to  be 
singled  out  at  a  distance,  but  which  to  the 
careful  and  loving  observer  revealed  them 
selves  as  full  of  beauty.  She  was  fond  of 
the  faint,  sweet  scents  of  the  opening  flowers 
in  spring,  of  the  dying  grass  in  fall,  of  the 
burning  peat  when  fires  broke  out  sometimes 
to  smoulder  until  the  next  rain.  She  never 
thought  about  her  feelings  or  phrased  the 
matter  to  herself,  but  she  loved  so  perfectly 
these  wastes  which  seemed  so  desolate  that 
they  were  to  her  as  kindred  and  home;  per 
haps  even  the  maternal  instinct  which  is  in- 


A  SKETCH  IN  UMBER.  249 

born  in  every  woman's  breast  found  some 
not  quite  inadequate  expression  in  her  almost 
passionate  fondness  for  the  great  heath. 

Her  relatives  spoke  of  her  always  as  "  odd," 
and  were  aggrieved  that  her  ways  should  be 
different  from  theirs;  but  everything  that 
continues  comes  in  time  to  be  accepted, 
and  as  the  years  went  on  Ruth's  method  of 
life  came  to  seem  proper  because  it  had  so 
long  been  the  same.  A  brawny  armed  ffsher 
cousin  sailed  over  from  the  village  every  Sun 
day  morning  to  see  that  all  was  well  at  the 
red  house,  and  to  bring  whatever  might  be 
needed  from  the  village  store.  Sometimes 
in  winter  he  found  her  house  half  buried 
in  snow,  but  he  never  could  report  that  she 
appeared  either  discontented  or  sad. 

It  was  of  the  coming  of  this  emissary  that 
Ruth  was  thinking  on  this  Saturday  night 
in  September  where  first  this  record  found 
her.  She  had  been  reflecting  much  to-day 
about  dying.  In  her  walk  about  the  heath 
she  had  come  upon  a  dead  bird,  and  the 
sight  had  suggested  to  her  her  own  end. 
She  acknowledged  to  herself  that  she  was 
old,  and  for  perhaps  the  only  time  in  her  life 
her  thought  had  formulated  a  general  truth. 
She  had  regarded  the  tiny  corpse  at  her  feet, 
and  then,  looking  about  upon  the  moors,  it 


250  A  BOOK  O"   NINE   TALES. 

came  over  her  how  immortal  is  the  youth  of 
the  world  and  how  brief  is  man's  life.  The 
land  about  her  was  no  older  than  when  she 
had  looked  upon  it  with  baby  eyes.  For  a 
single  instant  a  poignant  taste  of  bitterness 
seemed  set  to  her  lips ;  then  in  a  moment  the 
very  wide,  changeless  plain  that  had  caused 
her  pain  seemed  itself  somehow  to  assuage  it. 
To-night  sitting  here  she  admitted  to  her 
self  that  her  strength  had  failed  somewhat 
of  late.  Yes,  she  was  old.  It  was  almost 
half  a  century  ago  that  that  bold-eyed  hand 
some  stranger  had  compared  the  color  in 
her  cheeks  to  a  clove  pink.  She  smiled 
serenely,  although  her  reflections  were  of 
age  and  death,  so  perfectly  did  she  recall 
the  sunny  day  and  the  air  with  which  the 
sailor  would  have  kissed  her.  Placid  and 
content  in  the  gathering  dusk,  she  smiled 
her  own  grave,  sweet  smile,  which  it  were 
scarcely  too  fanciful  to  liken  to  the  odor  of 
the  clove  pink  of  her  garden-plot  whose  hue 
half  a  century  ago  had  been  in  her  cheek. 
She  had  but  one  regret  in  leaving  life,  and 
that  was  to  leave  her  moorlands.  She  had 
found  existence  so  pleasant  and  had  been  so 
well  content  that  she  could  not  understand 
why  people  so  usually  spoke  of  life  as  sad ; 
but  she  could  not  think  without  pain  of 


A  SKETCH  IN   UMBER.  2$  I 

leaving  the  plains  behind  and  going  away 
to  lie  in  the  bleak  hillside  graveyard  where 
slept  her  kinsfolk.  It  had  never  occurred 
to  her  before  to  consider  to  which  she  held 
more  strongly,  her  people  or  the  wide  brown 
stretches  of  open  about  her,  but  to-night 
she  debated  it  with  herself  and  decided 
it.  She  resolved  to  say  to  her  cousin  to 
morrow  that  she  wished  her  grave  made  in 
the  plains.  Very  likely  her  relatives  would 
object.  They  had  always  thought  her  ideas 
strange;  but  they  would  surely  let  her  have 
her  way  in  this.  She  would  even  make  some 
concessions  and  perhaps  let  Cousin  Sarah 
corne  to  live  with  her  if  they  would  agree 
to  do  as  she  wished  about  this.  It  would  be 
so  great  a  comfort  to  her  to  be  assured  that 
she  was  not  in  death  to  be  separated  from 
her  dearly  loved  moors.  She  liked  Sarah 
well  enough,  only  that  it  was  so  pleasant 
to  live  alone  with  her  bees  and  the  plains. 
Besides,  if  she  should  chance  to  die  alone, 
who  would  tell  the  bees?  It  would  be  a 
pity  to  have  the  fine  swarms  lost. 

Suddenly  she  started  up  in  the  dusk,  and 
without  knowing  clearly  why  she  did  it,  she 
wrote  on  the  bottom  of  the  list  of  errands 
which  she  always  made  on  Saturday  for  her 
cousin  her  wish  concerning:  her  grave.  The 


252  A   BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

spot  she  mentioned  was  a  knoll  near  the 
house,  where  the  ground  rose  a  little  before 
it  dipped  into  the  sea.  She  reflected  as 
she  wrote  that  it  wa's  wiser  to  be  prepared 
for  whatever  could  happen,  and,  although 
she  would  not  own  it  frankly  even  in  these 
lonely  musings,  Ruth  had  felt  strangely 
weak  and  worn  to-day. 

She  frugally  blew  out  the  candle  when  her 
writing  was  done,  and  with  calm  content  sat 
down  again  in  her  rocking-chair  by  the  win 
dow  darkening  to  "  a  glimmering  square."  She 
heard  the  sound  of  the  sea  and  the  low  wind 
blowing  over  the  wide  plains ;  and,  lulled  by 
the  soft  sounds,  she  fell  at  last  asleep. 

The  wind  rose  in  the  night,  and  it  was 
afternoon  when  the  cousin  from  the  village 
came  in  sight  of  the  red  house.  No  smoke 
rose  from  its  chimney,  and  as  he  tied  his 
clumsy  sail-boat  to  the  low  wharf  where  so 
long  ago  a  yacht  had  been  briefly  fastened, 
a  long  wavering  line  of  bees  rose  glistening 
from  the  straw-thatched  hives,  floating  up 
ward  and  away  like  the  departing  soul  of 
mortal.  Their  mistress  had  been  dead  more 
than  twelve  hours  and  they  had  not  been 
told.  Perhaps  it  was  a  chance  flight;  perhaps 
they  were  seeking  her  serene  spirit  over  the 
moors  she  loved  so  well. 


THIRTEEN. 


THIRTEEN. 

[The  drawing-room  of  Mr.  Sylvamts  Potts  Thomp 
son,  banker.  Aft:  Thompson  and  his  wife,  with  ten 
guests,  making  a  neat  round  dozen  in  all,  are  waiting 
the  announcement  of  dinner.  Enter  Mr.  Sylvanus 
Potts,  a  wealthy  uncle  from  the  country^ 

Mr.  Potts.  I  told  the  man  there  was  no  need  to 
announce  me ;  you  knew  I  was  coming  next  week, 
and  a  few  days  don't  matter.  How  do  you  do, 
nephew?  how  do  you  do,  Jane? 

Mr.  Thompson.  Why,  uncle,  we  did  not  expect 
you  so  soon,  but  we  are  always  glad  to  see  you, 
of  course. 

Mrs.  Thompson.  Yes,  always,  dear  Uncle  Syl- 
vanus.  How  is  everybody  at  home? 

Mr.  P.  Oh,  they  're  all  well ;  you  seem  to  be 
having  a  party,  nephew? 

Mr.  T.  Only  a  few  friends  to  dinner.  Let  me 
introduce  you. 

[He  takes  Jiim  on  his  arm  and  presents  him  to  his 
guests.  While  this  is  being  done,  a  sentimental,  el 
derly  young  woman,  with  thin  curls,  after  whispering 
impressively  with  her  neighbor,  glides  up  to  the  host 
ess,  and  holds  a  moment 's  conversation  with  that  lady. 
Mrs.  Thompson  turns  pale,  and  seems  engaged  in  a 
mental  calculation.  Then  she  starts  quickly  toward 
her  husband  and  draws  him  aside  ] 


256  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

Mrs.  T.  Sylvanus,  do  you  know  how  many 
people  there  are  in  this  room? 

Mr.  T.    Oh,  about  a  dozen,  I  suppose. 

Mrs.  T.  About  a  dozen  !  There  are  thirteen, 
Sylvanus,  thirteen  ! 

Mr.  T.    Well,  what  of  it  ? 

Mrs.  T.  What  of  it  !  Why,  we  can't  sit  down 
to  dinner  with  thirteen  at  table.  Maria  Smith  says 
she  should  have  a  fit. 

Mr.  T.  But  she  would  n't,  my  dear ;  she  's  too 
fond  of  her  dinner. 

Mrs.  T.  Mr.  Thompson,  is  it  kind  to  speak  so 
of  my  most  particular  friend  ? 

Mr.  T.  But  what  does  Maria  expect  us  to  do 
about  it?  Turn  Uncle  Sylvanus  out  of  the  house? 
Was  n't  I  named  for  him,  and  have  n't  I  always 
been  his  favorite  ?  Do  you  want  me  to  be  left  out 
of  his  will  ? 

Mrs.  T.  But  something  must  be  done.  Don't 
you  see  everybody  is  whispering  and  counting? 
Can't  we  get  somebody  else? 

Servant  (who  has  entered  unperceived) .  There 
is  a  man  downstairs,  sir,  wants  you  to  sign  some 
thing. 

Mr.  T.  Ah,  my  dear,  here  's  the  very  man,  — 
young  Jones.  He  's  our  new  cashier,  and  a  very 
clever  fellow. 

[Exit  Mr.  Thompson.  During  his  absence  Mrs. 
Thompson  communicates  to  Miss  Smith  the  solution 
of  the  difficulty  at  which  they  have  arrived.  Every- 


THIRTEEN.  257 

body  has  soon  heard  of  it,  so  that  on  Mr.  Thompson  's 
return  with  Mr.  Jones,  the  pair  are  greeted  with  much 
joking  about  the  ill-hick  which  is  thus  averted.  The 
necessary  introductions  take  pi  'ace  '•] 

Mr.  Jones.  I  am  sure  I  am  rejoiced  at  being 
instrumental  in  bringing  good  luck. 

Miss  Smith.  You  can  certainly  see  how  welcome 
you  are,  Mr.  Jones. 

Mr.  J.  But  I  fear  it  is  not  for  myself,  Miss 
Smith. 

Miss  S.  That  will  undoubtedly  come  later,  when 
we  know  you  better. 

Mr.  P.  I  am  glad  you  found  somebody,  nephew  ; 
for  I  must  say  I  never  would  have  given  up  my  din 
ner  for  a  foolish  superstition  ;  and  as  I  came  last 
and  uninvited  — 

Mrs.  T.  (relieved  of  her  fears  and  remembering 
the  will)  You  are  always  invited  to  this  house, 
Uncle  Potts  ;  and  we  would  never  hear  of  your 
going  away. 

Mr.  Robinson.  Well,  it  is  all  very  well  to  call  it 
a  superstition,  you  know  ;  but  I  knew  — 

\_Mr.  Robinson  proceeds  to  narrate  a  grewsome  and 
melancholy  tale,  in  which  disaster  and  death  resulted 
from  the  imprudence  of  sitting  down  with  thirteen  at 
table  j  half  a  dozen  other  guests  begin  simultaneously 
the  relation  of  six  more  equally  or  even  more  grew- 
some  and  melancholy  tales  upon  the  same  subject,  when 
they  are  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  a  note  for  Mr. 


Mr.  R.    My  dear  Mrs.  Thompson,  I  am  so  sorry, 

17 


258  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

but  my  brother  has  telegraphed  for  me  to  come  to 
him  at  once  on  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance. 
I  regret  — 

Mrs.  T.    But  Mr.  Robinson,  don't  you  see  that  — 

Servant.    Dinner  is  served. 

Mr.  T.    May  I  have  the  honor,  Mrs.  Brown  ? 

Miss  S.  But  we  can't  go  to  dinner  now.  Mr. 
Robinson  is  called  away,  and  that  leaves  us  thirteen 
again. 

[An  awful  hush  ensues,  during  which  Mr.  Rob 
inson,  finding  himself  regarded  as  a  criminal,  sud 
denly  slips  away,  leaving  the  company  to  extricate 
themselves  from  their  trying  situation  as  best  they  can. 
The  hush  is  followed  by  a  Babel  of  voices,  in  which  all 
sorts  of  suggestions  are  made."\ 

Mr.  J.  (with  heroic  and  renunciatory  sclf-dc- 
niat)  Let  me  speak,  please,  Mrs.  Thompson.  It 
was  very  kind  in  your  husband  to  invite  me  to 
remain  to  dinner,  but  now  that  I  shall  be  the 
thirteenth,  I  am  sure  you  '11  excuse  me. 

Mr.  T.   But  it  seems  so  inhospitable. 

Mrs.  T.  But  it  is  more  generous  to  deprive 
ourselves  of  Mr.  Jones's  company  than  to  be  the 
means  of  bringing  ill-luck  upon  him. 

Mr.  J.  Quite  right.  I  bid  you  good  evening, 
Mrs.  Thompson.  I  sincerely  hope  nothing  further 
will  occur  to  mar  the  pleasure  of  your  evening. 

\_Mr.  Jones  having  retired,  a  move  is  at  once  jnade 
toward  the  dining-room,  but  just  as  Mr.  Thompson 
and  Mrs.  Brown  reach  the  drawing-room  door,  they 


THIRTEEN.  259 

arc  confronted  by  Mr.  Robinson,  who  comes  in  breath 
less  but  triumphant.] 

Mr.  R.  I  thought  it  was  so  unkind  of  me  to 
throw  all  your  arrangements  into  confusion  after 
the  ill-lnck  of  numbers  you  have  already  had,  that 
I  concluded  to  telegraph  to  my  brother  instead  of 
going.  Phew  !  How  I  have  hurried  !  I  am  glad 
I  am  in  time. 

Mrs.  Brown.  Mr.  Thompson,  I  positively  cannot 
sit  down  at  table  with  thirteen.  My  aunt  died  of 
it,  and  my  second  cousin.  I  am  positive  it  runs 
in  the  family,  and  I  know  I  should  be  the  one  to 
bear  the  consequence  if  we  had  thirteen  at  any 
table  where  I  sat  down. 

\_The  greatest  confusion  follows.  Miss  Maria 
Smith  is  ]ieard  to  declare  that  "  Fate  takes  delight 
in  persecuting  her!"  while  young  Algernon  White 
mumbles  something  which  has  a  distinct  flavor  of  the 
Apostles'1  Creed.  Mr.  Robinson  shows  a  disposition 
to  consider  himself  a  most  ill-used  individual,  thus 
to  be  rewarded  for  the  trouble  he  has  taken] 

Mr.  T.    My  dear,  what  shall  we  do  now? 

Mrs.  T.  There  is  only  one  thing  that  I  can 
think  of;  we  can  send  across  the  street  for  Widow 
Ellis.  You  might  go  yourself  and  explain  to  her 
how  it  is. 

\_This  suggestion  being  acted  upon,  the  company 
settles  into  a  solemn  gloom,  pending  the  return  of  the 
host  with  Widow  Ellis.  Every  one  knows  the  dinner 
will  be  spoiled,  none  being  more  acutely  conscious  of 
that  fact  than  the  hostess,  and  every  one  is  nearly  per- 


260  A   BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

is  hi  tig  with  hunger.  More  grew  some  and  melancholy 
stories  are  told,  but  in  a  wavering  and  sribdued  man 
ner,  as  if  they  are  being  offered  as  excuses  for  resisting 
the  cravings  of  appetite,  which  are  rapidly  becoming 
insupportable.  Young  White  is  heard  to  mutter,  with 
fresh  suspicions  of  theological  terms,  that  one  might  as 
well  die  of  thirteen  at  table  as  of  starvation,  and  that 
for  his  part  he  prefers  the  former  method  of  extinction. 
The  return  of  Mr.  Thompson  with  the  Widow  Ellis 
awakens  some  feeble  enthusiasm,  but  it  is  evident  that 
nothing  short  of  a  substantial  dinner  can  restore  the 
spirits  of  the  company. ] 

Mr.  P.  Well,  nephew,  now  I  hope  we  may 
have  some  dinner.  I,  for  one,  am  faint  with 
hunger. 

Mr.  T.    Oh,  immediately.     Mrs.  Brown,  we  — 

[At  this  juncture  poor  Mrs.  Thompson,  overcome 
with  anxiety,  fatigue,  and  hunger,  produces  a  diver 
sion  by  falling  in  a  dead  faint.  The  shrieks  of  Miss 
Maria  Smith  are  re-enforced  by  those  of  other  ladies  of 
the  company,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  Mr.  Algernon 
White  no  longer  enjoys  the  exclusive  privilege  of  in 
dulging  in  ecclesiastical  references.  The  excitement 
usual  upon  such  occasions  reigns,  and  when  at  length 
Mrs.  Thompson  is  restored  to  consciousness,  but  is 
found  to  be  too  ill  to  stand,  and  is  borne  off  to  her 
chamber,  the  company,  once  more  reduced  to  thirteen, 
distributes  itself  in  a  stricken  and  overwhelmed  state 
about  the  drawing-room,  with  the  air  of  having  ceased 
to  struggle  against  an  adverse  fate ] 

Widow  E.    We    are   thirteen   again,   neighbor ; 
and  if  you  '11  excuse  me  — 


THIRTEEN.  26 1 

Mr.  P.  Thirteen  or  no  thirteen,  nephew,  I  'm 
going  to  have  something  to  eat  if  it 's  in  this  house. 

[He  disappears  toward  t!ic  dining-room,  and  as 
tlie  resolution  of  Widow  Ellis  seems  to  have  solved 
once  more  the  dreadful  conundrum  of  the  fated  num 
ber,  the  company  hastily  follow,  too  nearly  famished 
to  notice  that  the  lady  docs  not  carry  out  her  apparent 
intention  of  returning  home ,  so  that  after  all  they  sit 
down  thirteen  at  table.~\ 


APRIL'S   LADY. 


APRIL'S   LADY. 

!,T  was  fortunate  that  when  the  editor 
of  the  "  Dark  Red  "  magazine  first 
did  me  the  honor  to  request  a 
story  from  my  pen,  I  had  one 
ready  for  him,  and  one,  moreover,  with  which 
I  was  so  well  satisfied.  I  had  so  long  vainly 
desired  to  be  really  asked  for  a  contribution, 
and  thus  raised  from  the  numerous  and  in 
discriminate  company  of  scribblers  who  send 
hopeful  manuscripts  to  the  magazines,  and  in 
trembling  uncertainty  await  the  issue,  that  it 
is  not  strange  my  bosom  swelled  with  gratified 
pride,  and  that  I  dispatched  my  copy  with  so 
perfect  a  sense  of  complacency  that  I  almost 
seemed  to  condescend  a  little  in  letting  the 
editor  have  it. 

I  was  fond  of  that  story.  I  experienced  a 
certain  delight  in  recalling  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  composed,  and  I  felt  in  it 
that  confidence  which  an  author  is  sure  to 
have  in  work  which  has  sprung  spontane 
ously,  and  as  it  were  full-grown,  from  his 


266  A   BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

brain.  Every  literary  worker,  down  to  the 
veriest  penny-a-liner  of  them  all,  knows  the 
difference  between  a  tale  which  makes  itself, 
so  to  speak,  growing  unforced  into  beauty 
and  completeness  like  a  crystal,  and  a  labo 
riously  constructed  piece  of  work,  be  it  con 
trived  never  so  ingeniously  and  cleverly.  The 
fiction  I  sent  to  the  editor  of  the  "  Dark  Red  " 
was  of  the  former  variety.  It  had  come  into 
my  head  all  of  itself,  as  the  children  say, 
while  I  was  travelling  between  New  York  and 
Boston,  so  complete  and  so  distinct  that  I 
scarcely  seemed  to  have  more  to  do  with  its 
creation  than  the  later  putting  upon  paper. 
The  circumstances  were  these :  — 
I  had  reached  the  Grand  Central  Station 
jus't  in  time  to  catch  the  morning  train;  and 
as  the  cars  swept  out  into  the  daylight,  I 
settled  myself  into  a  seat  with  a  comfort 
able  and  something  too  self-satisfied  feeling. 
In  the  first  place,  I  was  glad  to  be  out  of 
New  York,  —  partly  because  it  wras  hot  and 
dusty  there,  partly  because  I  am  not  over- 
fond  of  Gotham,  and  partly  because  sundry 
pleasant  bachelor  friends  and  divers  good 
times  were  awaiting  me  at  the  Boston  end 
of  the  journey. 

I    looked   out   upon   the   sunny  landscape, 
over  which    the    splendors  of   an  April   day 


APRIL'S  LADY.  267 

cast  a  glow  of  warmth  and  brightness,  smiled 
at  the  remembrance  of  a  retort  I  had  made 
at  the  Century  Club  on  the  previous  evening, 
which  seemed  to  me  rather  neat,  and  then 
with  a  sort  of  mental  nod  of  farewell  to  all 
the  outside  world  I  took  up  my  book  and 
prepared  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  woful 
and  wicked,  but  thoroughly  charming  French 
heroine  with  whose  adventures  I  was  at  that 
particular  time  occupying  myself.  To  my 
vexation,  however,  I  discovered  that  instead 
of  the  second  volume  I  had  taken  the  first, 
and  as  I  had  no  especial  desire  to  peruse 
again  the  somewhat  detailed  account  of  the 
heroine's  youth,  her  career  at  school,  her  first 
confession  and  early  marriage,  —  all  these 
being  preliminary  to  the  impropriety  and  the 
interest  of  the  book,  which,  after  the  repre 
hensible  manner  of  French  novels,  began 
together,  —  I  laid  down  the  volume  with  a 
sigh,  and  resigned  myself  to  a  ride  of  unalle- 
viated  dulness. 

A  resource  instantly  presented  itself,  how 
ever,  in  the  page  which  the  lady  in  the  seat 
before  me  was  reading.  As  I  glanced  up  I 
sa\v  that  she  was  entertaining  herself  with 
poetry,  and  the  next  moment  a  familiar  line 
caught  my  eye  :  — 

"  If  you  were  April's  lady,  and  I  were  lord  of  May." 


268  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

"  Swinburne,"  I  mused,  "  or  a  collection  of 
selected  poems,  perhaps.  Wiseacres  would 
say  one  ought  to  know  what  a  reader  is  like 
by  the  book  she  reads ;  but  in  the  first  place 
that 's  nonsense,  and  in  the  second  place  I 
don't  know  what  book  she  is  reading.  She 
has  an  exquisite  ear,  and  her  hair  is  some 
thing  bewildering.  'If  you  were  April's  lady.' 
April's  lady  should  be  a  capricious  creature, 
all  smiles  and  tears,  with  winning  ways  and 
wilful  wiles,  —  impulsive  and  wayward,  apd 
thoroughly  enchanting.  It  would  not,"  —  my 
thoughts  ran  on  in  a  professional  turn,  while 
my  eyes  dwelt  appreciatively,  if  somewhat 
presumptuously,  upon  the  lovely  curve  of  my 
neighbor's  neck,  —  "  it  would  not  be  a  bad 
notion  to  write  a  story  of  such  a  maiden  and 
call  it  '  April's  Lady.'  Let  me  see,  what 
should  it  be  like?" 

And  upon  this  impulse  I  fell  to  pondering, 
when  suddenly,  as  if  by  magic,  a  tale  pre 
sented  itself  all  complete  in  my  mind.  My 
mental  action  appeared  to  me  more  like  that 
of  remembering  than  of  creating,  so  real  and 
so  complete  was  the  pretty  history.  The  self- 
willed,  volatile  damsel  whose  fortunes  it  con 
cerned  seemed  one  whom  I  had  known,  and 
whom  I  might  meet  again  some  day.  In 
my  mind  she  assumed,  it  is  true,  an  outward 


APRIL'S   LADY.  269 

semblance  similar  to  that  of  the  lady  before 
me,  upon  whose  back  I  fixed  my  regards  in 
an  absorbed  stare,  which  should  have  dis 
turbed  her  could  looks  make  themselves  felt. 
She  did  not  move,  however,  and  as  she  did 
not  turn  the  leaf  of  her  book,  I  fancied  she 
might  have  fallen  into  a  reverie  as  deep  as 
my  own.  I  had  not  been  able  fully  to  see 
her  face,  although  a  lucky  turn  had  given  me 
a  glimpse  of  a  profile  full  of  character  and 
beauty,  and  which  made  me  desire  to  behold 
more.  I  did  not,  however,  trouble  myself 
about  the  exact  details  of  my  heroine's  feat 
ures,  since  every  story-teller  has  a  stock  pf 
choice  personal  charms  with  which  to  endow 
his  fictitious  children,  but  continued  to  gloat 
over  my  little  romance ;  and  so  vividly  was 
the  tale  of  "April's  Lady"  impressed  upon 
my  mind  that  although  some  weeks  elapsed 
before  I  found  time  to  put  it  upon  paper, 
I  had  not  the  slighest  difficulty  in  recalling 
even  its  most  trifling  incidents. 

Almost  the  whole  of  my  journey  was  taken 
up  in  turning  the  story  over  in  my  mind, 
and  when  we  drew  into  the  Boston  station, 
and  my  neighbor  closed  her  volume  to  begin 
the  collection  of  her  numerous  feminine  pos 
sessions,  I  had  half  a  mind  to  lean  forward 
and  thank  her  for  having  given  me,  although 
unconsciously,  so  good  a  story. 


2  70  A   BOOK   a   NINE    TALES. 

It  did  seem  to  me,  even  after  I  had  sent 
my  manuscript  off  and  the  dreadful  moment 
came  when  one  realizes  that  it  is  too  late 
to  make  changes  and  consequently  thinks 
of  plenty  of  things  he  wishes  to  alter,  that 
"  April's  Lady "  was  the  best  work  I  had 
ever  done.  I  had  let  a  month  or  two  pass 
between  its  first  writing  and  the  final  revision, 
and  I  was  pretty  well  satisfied  that  I  had  pro 
duced  a  really  capital  story.  I  fondly  hoped 
Mr.  Lane,  the  editor  of  the  "  Dark  Red,"  would 
be  moved  by  its  excellence  to  give  me  further 
orders;  and  the  eagerness  with  which  I  one 
morning  tore  open  an  envelope  upon  which 
I  recognized  his  handwriting,  may  be  easily 
enough  imagined,  at  least  by  members  of  the 
literary  guild.  My  impatience  gave  place  to 
profound  astonishment  as  I  read  the  following 
note :  — 

OFFICE  DARK  RED  MAGAZINE, 
BOSTON,  September  27. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  GRAY,  —  Can  you  drop  into  my 
office  to-morrow  about  noon?  By  some  odd  co 
incidence  I  received  a  story  very  similar  to  your 
"April's  Lady,"  and  bearing  the  same  title,  several 
days  earlier,  and  should  like  to  talk  with  you 
about  it. 

Very  truly  yours, 

J.  Q.  LANE. 


APRIL'S   LADY.  2JI 

I  was  utterly  confounded.  I  racked  my 
brains  to  discover  who  could  possibly  have 
stolen  my  story,  and  even  suspected  the  small 
black  girl  who  dusted  my  rooms,  although 
the  sooty  little  morsel  did  not  know  one  letter 
from  another.  The  first  draft  of  the  story 
had  lain  in  my  desk  for  some  time,  it  was 
true,  yet  that  any  literary  burglar  should 
have  forced  an  entrance  and  then  contented 
himself  with  copying  this  seemed,  upon  the 
whole,  scarcely  probable.  I  ransacked  my 
memory  for  some  old  tale  which  I  might 
unconsciously  have  plagiarized,  but  I  could 
think  of  nothing;  and,  moreover,  I  reflected 
that  the  coincidence  of  names  certainly  could 
not  be  accounted  for  in  this  way,  even  did  I 
recall  the  germ  of  my  plot. 

I  presented  myself  at  the  office  of  the 
"Dark  Red"  at  the  hour  appointed  with  a 
clear  conscience,  it  is  true,  but  with  positively 
no  suggestion  whatever  to  offer  in  regard  to 
the  method  by  which  a  copy  of  my  story 
could  have  reached  the  editor  in  advance  of 
my  own  manuscript. 

Mr.  Lane  received  me  with  the  convention 
ally  cordial  manner  which  is  as  much  a  part 
of  editorial  duties  as  is  the  use  of  the  blue 
pencil,  and  without  much  delay  came  to  the 
business  of  the  call. 


2/2  A   BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

"  There  is  something  very  singular  about 
this  affair,"  he  said,  laying  out  my  manu 
script,  and  beside  it  another  which  I  could 
see  was  written  in  a  running  feminine  hand. 
"  If  the  stories  were  a  little  more  alike,  I 
should  be  sure  one  was  copied  from  the 
other;  as  it  is,  it  is  inconceivable  that  they 
have  not  at  least  a  common  origin.  Where 
did  you  get  your  idea?" 

"  Why,  so  far  as  I  know,"  I  replied  in  per 
plexity,  "  I  evolved  it  from  my  inner  con 
sciousness  ;  but  the  germ  may  have  been  the 
unconscious  recollection  of  some  incident  or 
floating  idea.  I  Ve  tried  to  discover  where  I 
did  get  the  fancy,  but  without  a  glimmer  of 
success.  Who  sent  you  the  other  version?" 

"  A  lady  of  whose  integrity  I  am  as  sure  as 
I  am  of  yours.  That 's  the  odd  part  of  it. 
Besides,  you  are  both  of  you  too  clever  to 
plagiarize,  even  if  you  were  n't  too  honest. 
The  mere  similarity  of  theme  is  n't  so  strange  ; 
that  happens  often  enough  ;  but  that  the  title 
of  the  stories  should  be  identical,  and  that  in 
each  the  heroine  should  be  named  May  — 

"Is  her  heroine  named  May?"  I  inter 
rupted  in  astonishment;  "why,  then,  she 
must  have  seen  my  copy;  or,"  I  added,  a 
new  thought  striking  me,  "  she  must  have 
got  the  name  in  the  same  way  I  did.  I 


APRIL'S   LADY.  2/3 

took  the  title  of  the  story  and  the  name  of 
the  heroine  from  a  line  of  Swinburne,  and  —  " 

"  And,"  interrupted  the  editor  in  turn, 
catching  up  the  manuscript  before  him,  "so 
did  she." 

And  he  showed  me,  written  at  the  head  of 
the  page : — 

"  If  you  were  April's  lady,  and  I  were  lord  of  May." 

"Well,"  I  remarked,  with  a  not  unnatural 
mingling  of  philosophy  and  anoyance,  "  it  is 
all  of  a  piece  with  my  theory  that  ideas  are 
in  the  air,  and  belong,  like  wild  geese,  to 
whoever  catches  them  first;  but  it  is  vexa 
tious,  when  I  captured  a  fancy  that  particu 
larly  pleased  me,  to  find  that  some  woman  or 
other  has  been  smart  enough  to  get  salt  on 
its  tail-feathers  before  I  did." 

Mr.  Lane  smiled  at  my  desperate  air,  and 
at  that  moment  his  little  office-boy,  whom 
I  particularly  detest  because  of  the  catlike 
stillness  and  suddenness  of  his  movements, 
silently  produced  first  himself  and  then  a 
card. 

"  'Agnes Graham,'  "  read  Mr.  Lane.  "  Here 
is  your  rival  to  speak  for  herself.  I  hope 
you  don't  mind  seeing  her?" 

"Oh,  by  no  means,"   I   replied   rather  un 
graciously.     "  Let  us  see  what  she  is  like,  and 
what  she  will  have  to  say  about  this  puzzle." 
18 


2/4  A    BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

The  name  was  not  wholly  new  to  me, 
as  I  had  seen  it  signed  to  various  magazine 
articles,  concerning  which  at  this  moment  I 
had  only  the  most  vague  and  general  idea. 
I  was  sitting  with  my  back- to  the  door,  and 
in  rising  I  still  kept  my  face  half  turned  away 
from  the  lady  who  entered,  but  I  saw  the 
reflection  of  her  face  in  a  mirror  opposite 
without  any  sense  of  recognition.  As  she 
advanced  a  step  or  two,  however,  and  half 
passed  me,  I  knew  her.  The  delicate  ear,  the 
fine  sweep  of  the  neck,  the  kntDt  of  golden 
brown  hair,  were  all  familiar.  It  was  the 
lady  who  had  sat  before  me  in  the  cars  from 
New  York  on  that  April  day. 

As  she  turned  in  recognition  of  Mr.  Lane's 
introduction,  a  faint  flush  seemed  to  show 
that  she  too  recognized  me,  although  I  was 
unable  to  understand  how  she  should  know 
me,  since  she  certainly  had  not  turned  her 
head  once  in  the  entire  journey.  I  set  it 
down  to  pure  feminine  intuition,  not  having 
wholly  freed  myself  from  that  masculine 
superstition  which  regards  woman's  instinct 
as  a  sort  of  supernatural  clairvoyance. 

My  sensations  on  discovering  her  identity 
were  not  wholly  unlike  those  of  a  man  who 
inadvertently  touches  a  charged  Leyden  jar. 

"  Good   heavens  !  "   I  exclaimed,  "  what   a 


APRIL'S   LADY.  2/5 

psychological  conundrum,  or  whatever  you 
choose  to  call  it.  The  whole  matter  is  as 
plain  to  me  now  as  daylight." 

"Well?"  Mr.  Lane  asked,  while  Miss 
Graham  regarded  me  with  an  air  which 
seemed  to  question  whether  my  insanity 
were  of  a  dangerous  type. 

"  Pardon  me,  Miss  Graham,  if  I  cross-ques 
tion  you  a  little,"  I  went -on,  becoming  some 
what  excited.  "  You  came  from  New  York 
on  the  morning  train  on  Wednesday,  the 
fifteenth  • —  no,  the  sixteenth  of  last  April,  did 
you  not?" 

"  Yes,"  she  answered,  her  color  again  a 
trifle  heightened,  but  her  appearance  being 
rather  that  of  perplexity  than  of  self-con 
sciousness. 

"  And  on  the  way  you  read  Swinburne  till 
you  came  to  the  line, 

'  If  you  were  April's  lady,  and  I  were  lord  of  May,' 
and  it  occurred  to   you  what  a  capital  name 
for  a  story  '  April's  Lady'  would  be?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  repeated ;  and  then,  with  a  yet 
more  puzzled  air,  she  turned  to  Mr.  Lane  to 
ask,  "  Is  this  mind-reading?  " 

"  I  *m  sure  I  don't  know,"  returned  he. 
"  Mr.  Gray  can  best  tell  what  it  is." 

"  And  the  rest  of  the  way  to  Boston,"  I 
continued,  ignoring  the  interruption,  "  you 


2/6  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

were  elaborating  your  story.  You  took  the 
heroine's  name  from  the  same  line,  and  had 
a  pun  at  the  climax  about  the  hero's  becom 
ing  '  lord  of  May.'  " 

"  No,"  Miss  Graham  retorted,  beginning  to 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  situation.  "  I  deny 
the  pun,  although  I  acknowledge  the  rest. 
The  pun  I  did  n't  even  think  of." 

"  Well,  you  see  I  have  n't  read  your  manu 
script,  but  I  own  I  fell  so  low  that  I  put  in 
the  pun  myself.  At  least  the  old  gentleman 
with  a  scar  on  his  cheek,  who  sat  in  the  cor 
ner  of  the  car,  gave  you  hints  for  — 

"  The  uncle,"  broke  in  Miss  Graham,  with 
a  gleeful  laugh  at  the  remembrance  of  the 
oddity  of  the  old  gentleman's  appearance. 
"  But  how  in  the  world  did  you  know?  " 

"  Oh,  he  did  me.  We  evidently  had  the 
same  mental  experience ;  which  proves,  I 
suppose,  that  we  are  literary  Corsican  broth 
ers  or  something  of  the  sort." 

"  But  the  great  question  to  be  settled  is," 
Mr.  Lane  observed,  bringing  in,  after  some 
further  talk,  the  editorial  consideration,  "whose 
story  this  really  is." 

"  Miss  Graham's,  by  all  means,"  I  said  in 
stantly.  "  Hers  was  first  in  the  field,  and  if  I 
had  n't  impertinently  looked  over  her  shoulder, 
I  should  n't  have  had  any  share  in  it  whatever." 


APRIL'S   LADY.  277 

Miss  Graham  laughed,  showing  a  delicious 
dimple,  and  Mr.  Lane,  who  evidently  had  no 
desire  to  settle  the  question  under  discussion, 
looked  inquiringly  at  her  for  a  response  to  my 
words. 

"  You  are  very  generous,  Mr.  Gray,"  she 
answered ;  "  but  in  the  first  place  my  story 
has  never  been  accepted  for  the  'Dark  Red,' 
and  in  the  second,  as  the  stories  really  ought 
to  stand  on  their  merits,  I  shall  certainly  not 
venture  to  put  mine  into  competition  with 
yours,  but  prefer  to  pocket  my  manuscript 
and  retire." 

"  I  fear,"  was  my  reply,   "  that  I  discover 
rather  a  tendency  to  sarcasm  in  what  you  say , 
than  any  true  humility.     Of  course  the  first 
point  is  one  for  Mr.  Lane  to  settle." 

The  editor  cleared  his  throat  with  some 
embarrassment,  but  before  he  found  the  words 
he  wanted,  Miss  Graham  spoke  again. 

"  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  being  sar 
castic,  for,  of  course,  it  goes  without  saying 
that  your  story  is  better  than  mine;  but  since 
you  choose  to  take  it  in  that  way,  I  am  will 
ing  to  leave  the  whole  matter  to  Mr.  Lane. 
He  is  at  least  the  only  person  who  has  read 
both  manuscripts." 

"  Really,"  Mr.  Lane  said,  thus  pushed  into 
a  corner,  "  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  find  my- 


2/8  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

self  placed  in  so  trying  a  situation.  There 
are  points  in  which  each  story  excels,  and 
the  best  result  would  undoubtedly  be  at 
tained  by  welding  them  together." 

"  If  that  could  be  done,"  said  Miss  Graham, 
thoughtfully. 

"  Now,  in  Mr.  Gray's  version,"  he  continued, 
"  the  heroine  is  more  attractive  and  real." 

"  That,"  I  interpolated,  trying  to  cover  the 
awkwardness  I  felt  by  a  jest,  "  is  the  first 
time  in  all  my  literary  experience  that  the 
character  I  thought  best  in  a  story  I  'd 
written  has  seemed  so  to  the  editorial 
mind." 

,  The  dark  eyes  of  my  neighbor  gave  me  a 
bright,  brief  glance,  but  whether  of  sympathy 
with  my  statement  or  of  contempt  for  the 
feebleness  of  my  attempts  at  being  jocose,  I 
could  not  determine. 

"  While  Miss  Graham,"  went  on  the  editor 
ial  comment,  "  has  decidedly  the  advantage 
in  her  hero." 

Miss  Graham  flushed  slightly,  but  offered 
no  remark  in  reply  to  this  opinion  beyond  a 
smile  which  seemed  one  of  frank  pleasure. 
We  sat  in  silence  a  moment,  a  not  unnatural 
hesitancy  preventing  my  making  a  propo 
sition  which  had  presented  itself  to  my 
mind. 


APRIL'S  LADY.  279 

"  If  it  will  not  seem  impertinent  to  Miss 
Graham,"  I  ventured  at  length,  "  I  would 
propose  that  we  really  do  try  the  experiment 
of  collaboration  on  this  story.  I  have  never 
worked  with  anybody,  but  I  promise  to  be 
tractable;  and  the  thing  had  so  odd  a  begin 
ning  that  it  is  a  pity  to  thwart  the  evident 
intention  of  destiny  that  we  shall  both  have  a 
hand  in  it." 

To  this  proposition  the  lady  at  first  re 
turned  a  decided  and  even  peremptory  nega 
tive  ;  but  my  persausions,  seconded  by  those 
of  Mr.  Lane,  who  was  partly  curious  and 
partly  anxious  to  escape  from  the  necessity 
of  arbitrating  in  the  matter,  in  the  end  in 
duced  her  to  alter  her  decision. 

The  result  of  the  interview  was  that  when 
we  left  the  office  of  the  "Dark  Red"  Miss 
Graham  had  my  manuscript  and  I  hers,  and 
that  an  appointment  had  been  made  for  my 
calling  upon  her  with  a  view  to  an  inter 
change  of  comments  and  criticisms. 

Upon  the  appointed  evening  I  presented 
myself  at  the  home  of  Miss  Graham,  and  al 
most  without  the  usual  conventionalites  con 
cerning  the  weather  we  proceeded  to  discuss 
the  stories.  We  began  with  great  outward 
suavity  and  courtesy  the  exchange  of  compli 
ments,  which  were  so  obviously  formal  and 


280  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

perfunctory  that  in  a  moment  more  we  looked 
into  each  other's  faces  and  burst  into  laughter 
which  if  hardly  polite  was  at  least  genuine. 

"  Come/'  I  said,  "  now  the  ice  is  broken 
and  we  can  say  what  we  really  think ;  and  I 
must  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  that  hero 
of  yours,  whom  Mr.  Lane  praised,  is  the 
most  insufferable  cad  I  've  encountered  this 
many  a  day.  He  can't  be  set  off  against 
that  lovely  girl  in  my  story.  Why,  the  truth 
is,  Miss  Graham,  I  meant  her  to  be  what  I 
fancied  you  might  be.  She  's  the  ideal  I 
built  up  from  seeing  you  in  the  cars." 

"  I  must  say,"  Miss  Graham  retorted  with 
spirit,  "  that  if  you  meant  that  pert  heroine 
of  yours  for  me,  I  am  anything  but  compli 
mented." 

"  It  is  a  pity,  then,  that  you  did  n't  intend 
your  hero  for  me,  and  we  should  have  been 
more  than  quits." 

She  blushed  so  vividly  that  a  sudden  light 
burst  upon  me. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  I  exclaimed,  "  he  does 
have  my  eyes  and  beard  ;  but  you  did  n't  see 
me.  It  is  n't  possible  — ' 

"  But  it  is,"  interrupted  she,  desperately. 
"  With  a  mirror  in  the  end  of  the  car 
directly  before  me  all  the  way  from  New 
York,  do  you  suppose  I  could  help  seeing 


APRIL'S  LADY.  28l 

you  !  I  'm  sure  you  kept  your  eyes  on  me 
steadily  enough  to  give  me  a  good  excuse." 

I  whistled  rudely;  whereat  she  looked 
offended,  and  we  went  on  from  one  thing  to 
another  until  we  had  got  up  a  very  respect 
able  quarrel  indeed.  There  is  nothing  more 
conducive  to  a  thoroughly  good  understand 
ing  between  persons  of  opposite  sex  than  a 
genuine  quarrel;  and  having  reached  the 
point  where  there  was  no  alternative  but  to 
separate  in  anger  or  to  apologize,  we  chose 
the  latter  course,  and  having  mutually  hum 
bled  ourselves,  after  that  got  on  capitally. 

"  It  is  my  deliberate  conviction,"  she  ob 
served,  when  we  at  length  got  upon  a  footing 
sufficiently  familiar  for  jesting,  "that  this 
story  is  really  mine,  and  that  you  purloined  it 
from  me  by  some  mysterious  clairvoyance." 

"  That  may  be,"  I  admitted.  "  I  once 
guessed  that  a  man  was  a  bartender  by  the 
way  he  stirred  his  coffee  at  the  steamer  table, 
and  that  got  me  a  very  pretty  reputation  as  a 
seer  for  a  day  or  two ;  and  very  likely  the 
truth  is  that  I  was  all  the  time  a  mind-reader 
without  knowing  it." 

She  smiled  good-naturedly — more  good- 
naturedly,  indeed,  than  the  jest  deserved  ;  and 
from  that  moment  our  acquaintance  got  on 
famously.  The  story  was  far  from  advancing 


282  A   BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

as  rapidly,  however.  A  very  brief  time  suf 
ficed  to  reduce  both  versions  of  "  April's 
Lady"  to  hopeless  confusion,  but  to  build 
from  the  fragments  a  new  and  improved 
copy  was  a  labor  of  much  magnitude.  Cir 
cumstances  moreover,  conspired  to  hinder 
our  work.  It  was  necessary  that  we  verify 
our  impressions  of  material  we  had  used,  and 
to  do  this  we  were  obliged  to  attend  the 
theatre  together,  to  read  together  various 
poems,  and  together  to  hear  a  good  deal  of 
music.  A  little  ingenuity,  and  a  common 
inclination  to  prolong  these  investigations, 
effected  so  great  a  lengthening  out  that  it 
was  several  months  before  we  could  even  pre 
tend  to  be  ready  to  begin  serious  work  upon 
the  story ;  and  even  then  we  were  far  from 
agreeing  in  a  number  of  important  particulars. 
"  Agnes,"  I  remarked,  one  February  even 
ing,  when  we  were  on  our  way  home  from  a 
concert  to  which  we  had  boldly  gone  without 
even  a  pretence  that  it  was  in  the  remotest 
way  connected  with  our  literary  project,  "  I 
fear  we  are  becoming  demoralized,  and  it 
seems  to  me  the  only  hope  of  our  ever  com 
pleting  '  April's  Lady'  is  to  put  everything 
else  aside  for  the  time  being  and  give  our 
minds  to  it.  I  can  get  my  work  arranged, 
and  you  can  finish  those  articles  for  '  The 


APRILS   LADY.  283 

Quill  '  by  the  middle   of  March.     Then,  \ve 
can  be  quietly  married  and  go   to  some  nice 
old-fashioned    place  —  say    St.    Augustine  — 
for  a  couple  of  months  and  get  this  magnum 
opus  on  paper  at  last." 

"  As  to  being  married,"  returned  she  se 
dately,  "  have  you  considered  that  we  could 
not  possibly  make  a  living,  since  we  should 
inevitably  be  always  writing  the  same  things?  " 

"  Why,  that  is  my  chief  reason,"  I  retorted, 
"  for  proposing  it.  Think  how  awkward  it  is 
going  to  be  if  either  of  us  marries  somebody 
else,  and  then  we  write  the  same  things.  It 
is  a  good  deal  better  to  have  our  interests  in 
common  if  our  inventive  faculty  is  to  be  so." 

"  There  is  something  in  what  you  say," 
Agnes  assented;  "  and  it  would  be  especially 
awkward  for  you,  since  the  invention  is  in  my 
head." 

"  Then  we  will  consider  it  all  arranged." 

"Oh,  no,  George;  by  no  means.  I  couldn't 
think  of  it  for  a  minute  !  " 

Whether  she  did  think  of  it  for  a  minute  is 
a  point  which  may  be  left  for  the  settling  of 
those  versed  in  the  ways  of  the  feminine 
mind;  certain  it  is  that  the  programme  was 
carried  out —  except  in  one  trifling  particular. 
We  were  quietly  married,  we  did  go  to  St. 
Augustine,  but  as  for  doing  anything  with 


284  A  BOOK  o>   N1NE   TALES. 

the  story,  that  was  quite  another  thing.  We 
did  not  finish  it  then,  and  we  have  not  fin 
ished  it  yet,  and  I  have  ceased  to  have  any 
very  firm  confidence  that  we  ever  shall  finish 
it;  although,  whenever  arises  one  of  those 
financial  crises  which  are  so  painfully  frequent 
in  the  family  of  a  literary  man,  and  we  sit 
down  to  consider  possible  resources,  one  or 
the  other  of  us  is  sure  sooner  or  later  to 
observe :  — 

"And    then    there   is   'April's   Lady/  you 
know." 


A   CUBAN   MORNING. 


A   CUBAN    MORNING. 

[Scene,  the  shady  piazza  of  the  hotel  at  Marian ao, 
Cuba.  7Y;//<?,  nine  o'clock  on  a  hot  March  morning. 
Miss  Peltonville  and  Arthur  Chester  tete-a-tete. .] 

She.    Why  did  you  follow  us  to  Cuba  ? 

He.  I  have  already  told  you  that  I  thought  you 
were  in  Florida. 

She.  Yes?  And  so  you  came  to  Marianao, 
where  nobody  comes  at  this  time  of  year,  in  order 
that  you  might  be  perfectly  safe  from  an  encounter, 
I  suppose. 

He.    Oh,  I  —  that  is  ;  precisely. 

She.  I  had  a  letter  from  Annie  Cleaves  yes 
terday. 

He.    Had  you  ? 

She.  Yes ;  and  she  said  you  told  her  that  you 
were  coming  to  Cuba  to  find  me. 

He.  Oh,  that 's  nothing.  It  is  n't  to  be  sup 
posed  I  told  her  the  truth. 

She.  Do  you  speak  the  truth  so  seldom,  then? 
Is  there  no  dependence  to  be  put  on  what  you  say? 

He.  None  whatever  ;  otherwise  I  should  be  con 
tinually  hampered  by  the  necessity  of  conforming 
my  actions  to  my  words.  You  can  see  yourself 
how  inconvenient  that  would  be. 


288  A   BOOK  O'   NINE    TALES. 

She,  For  one  who  has  had  so  little  practice,  very 
likely ;  but  then  you  would  find  it  a  novel  expe 
rience,  I  have  no  doubt. 

He.  Ah,  you  have  given  me  an  idea.  I  '11  try 
it  when  all  other  novelties  in  life  are  exhausted. 

She.  Don't  put  it  off  too  long,  or  from  the  force 
of  habit  you  may  find  it  impossible. 

He.    You  underrate  my  adaptability. 

She.    Meanwhile  I  wish  to  know  why  you  came. 

He.  Since  you  are  here  yourself,  you  might  be 
supposed  to  regard  the  place  as  sufficiently  inter 
esting  to  attract  the  traveller. 

She.    Then  you  decline  to  tell  me  ? 

He.    Oh,  no  ;  I  came  because  you  amuse  me. 

She.    Thank  you  for  nothing. 

He.  And  consequently  I  am  in  love  with  you, 
as  I  did  myself  the  honor  to  mention  before  you 
left  New  York. 

She.  Am  I  to  understand  that  amusement  is 
your  idea  of  love? 

He.  Love  certainly  must  be  something  that  does 
not  bore  one. 

She.  But  it  seems  a  somewhat  limited  view  to 
take. 

He.  Oh,  it  is  only  one  way  out  of  many ;  I 
assure  you  I  have  quantities  of  ideas  upon  the  sub 
ject,  all  founded  upon  experience.  I  loved  Lottie 
Greenwell  because  she  made  a  glorious  champagne 
cup.  Indeed,  for  ten  days  I  positively  adored  her, 
until  one  night  she  put  in  too  much  curacoa,  and  I 


A   CUBAN  MORNING.  289 

realized  how  uncertain  a  foundation  my  passion 
had.  Then  there  was  Elsie  Manning.  My  passion 
for  her  was  roused  entirely  by  her  divine  waltzing, 
but  I  realized  that  it  is  n't  good  form  for  a  man  to 
waltz  with  his  wife,  and  I  stood  a  much  better  chance 
if  she  married  some  other  man.  After  that  came 
Kate  Turner ;  she  writes  so  fascinating  a  letter  that 
I  lost  my  heart  every  time  I  saw  her  handwriting 
on  the  back  of  an  envelope,  although  perhaps  that 
feeling  you  would  call  only  a  fancy,  since  nobody 
would  think  of  marrying  on  a  virtue  that  is  sure  to 
end  with  the  wedding.  A  wife  never  writes  to  her 
husband  about  anything  but  the  servants  and  the 
payment  of  her  milliner's  bills ;  so  my  flirtation 
with  her  would  n't  really  count  as  a  love  affair. 

She.    You  excel  in  nice  metaphysical  distinctions. 

He.  Then  there  was  Miss  French.  I  loved  her 
because  she  snubbed  me,  —  just  as  I  loved  Nora 
Delaney  for  her  riding,  and  Annie  Cleaves  for  her 
music. 

She.  And  now  you  love  me,  I  am  to  understand, 
as  suited  to  the  position  of  court  jester  to  your 
Royal  Highness. 

He.  One  must  have  some  sort  of  a  reason  for 
being  in  love. 

She.    But  one  need  n't  be  in  love. 

He.    Oh,  yes  •   life  is  very  dull  otherwise  ;   and 

besides,  I  have  always  thought  it  very  stupid  to 

marry  without  having  been  in  love  a  dozen  times 

at  least.     One  is  apt  to  lose  his  head  otherwise  ; 

19 


290  A   BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

and  how  can  he  judge  of  the  value  of  his  passion 
without  having  had  a  good  deal  of  experience? 

She.  So  you  advertise  yourself  as  a  marrying 
man? 

He.  Every  bachelor  is  a  marrying  man.  It  is 
only  a  question  of  finding  a  convenient  wife. 

She.    Like  a  convenient  house,  I  suppose. 

He.    Exactly. 

She.  I  wonder  any  woman  ever  consents  to 
marry  a  man. 

He.  They  know  their  own  sex  too  well  to  be 
willing  to  marry  a  woman. 

She.    But  men  are  such  selfish  creatures  ! 

He.  You  are  amazingly  pretty  when  you  toss 
your  head  that  way.  It  is  worth  coming  from  New 
York  to  see. 

She.  It  is  well  you  think  so ;  otherwise  you 
might  consider  your  voyage  a  waste  of  time. 

He.  What,  with  the  certainty  of  your  consenting 
to  marry  me? 

She.  I  like  your  assurance  !  Why  should  I 
marry  you  ? 

He.  I  supposed  that  with  your  sex  the  fact  of 
my  amazing  attachment  would  be  a  sufficient 
reason. 

She.  Your  knowledge  of  our  sex  is  then  remark 
ably  limited.  Apparently,  whether  I  happen  to 
love  you  is  of  no  particular  consequence. 

He.    Oh,  love  is  said  to  beget  love. 

She.    But  you  love  me,  you  say,  because  I  amuse 


A   CUBAN  MORNING.  291 

you.  Now  you  don't  amuse  me  in  the  least,  and 
as  I  do  not  know  just  how  to  cultivate  a  passion 
simply  on  the  rather  doubtful  ground  of  your  affec 
tion,  especially  with  the  chance  of  its  being  tran 
sient,  there  really  seems  to  be  very  little  chance  of 
reciprocity. 

He.  Do  you  know  what  a  tremendously  hot 
day  it  is? 

She.  I  don't  see  the  connection,  and  I  am  sure 
I  am  cool  enough. 

He.  But  you  make  it  very  hot  for  me  !  How 
picturesque  that  ragged  fellow  over  there  looks, 
riding  on  the  top  of  his  high  saddle. 

She.  With  a  string  of  mules  tied  to  his  horse's 
tail.  I  am  fond  of  the  mules,  their  bells  are  so 
musical. 

He.    And  their  bray. 

She.  And  the  muleteers  sing  such  weird  songs. 
I  hear  them  going  by  about  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  on  their  way  to  the  Havana  market,  and 
the  effect  is  most  fascinating. 

He.  I  should  have  expected  you  to  be  fond  of 
the  mules. 

She.    Why? 

He.  A  fellow  feeling  is  said  to  have  a  softening 
effect,  and  the  mule's  strongest  characteristic  is  — 

She.    Consistency  ! 

He.  And  as  I  was  about  to  remark,  we  are  apt 
to  value  others  most  for  the  virtues  we  do  not  our 
selves  possess. 


2Q2  A  BOOK   a   NINE    TALES. 

She.   You  are  sufficiently  rude. 

He.  There  is  always  danger  that  honesty  will  be 
thought  rude. 

She.  Really,  you  begin  to  amuse  me.  Please  go 
on ;  I  would  like  to  try  falling  in  love  on  the 
amusement  plan ;  it  must  be  very  droll. 

He.  Oh,  bother  the  amusement !  Like  the 
young  ladies  in  novels,  I  would  be  loved  for  myself 
alone. 

She.  I  fear  that  would  be  more  difficult  than  the 
other  way.  What  have  you  ever  done  to  make  me 
admire  you  ? 

He.  Perhaps  nothing.  Admiration  presupposes 
the  capability  of  appreciation. 

She.  Ah  !  What  have  you  done,  then,  worthy 
of  admiration  ? 

He.  I  have  managed  to  find  you  at  Marianao, 
and  bring  about  a  tete-a-tete  before  I  have  been 
here  fifteen  hours. 

She.  Wonderful  man  !  And  of  all  that,  what 
comes  ? 

He.  That  I  ask  you  to  marry  me.  That  is  cer 
tainly  something. 

She.  Yes ;  it  is  n't  much,  and  you  have  done  it 
before.  But  as  you  say,  it  is  certainly  something. 

He.  You  are  always  flattering !  Really,  one 
would  n't  have  expected  you  to  be  light  now,  when 
it  is  my  deepest  affections  and  all  that  sort  of 
touching  thing  with  which  you  are  trifling. 

She.    You  are  a  humbug  ! 


A   CUBAN  MORNING.  293 

He.  Of  course ;  so  are  you  ;  so  is  everybody. 
Civilization  is  merely  the  apotheosis  of  humbug. 

She.  My  friend,  that  trick  of  striving  after  epi 
gram  is  fast  making  you  as  bad  as  a  confirmed 
punster. 

He.  Still,  it  is  all  true.  I  am  a  humbug  in  pro 
posing  to  you  ;  you,  if  you  reject  me  - 

She.  I  certainly  do,  most  emphatically  and 
finally  ! 

He.    You  make  me  the  happiest  of  men. 

She.  You  make  your  system  of  humbug  far  too 
complicated  for  me  to  follow. 

He.    Why,  this  is  genuine. 

She.  Anything  genuine  from  you,  I  fear,  is  im 
possible. 

He.  Oh,  no ;  I  have  to  be  genuine  occasionally, 
for  the  sake  of  contrast.  The  humbug  was  in  ask 
ing  you  to  marry  me,  and  I  would  n't  have  had  you 
say  yes  for  the  world. 

She.  I  never  suspected  you  of  insanity,  Mr. 
Chester.  Am  I  to  infer  that  the  climate  of  Cuba, 
or  the  wines  — 

He.  Oh,  neither,  I  assure  you.  Besides,  Cuba 
has  no  wines,  as  you  ought  to  know.  Now,  see  ; 
I  '11  do  you  the  rare  honor  of  telling  you  the  truth. 
Of  course,  you  are  at  liberty  to  believe  it  or  not,  as 
you  please  ;  and  very  likely  you  won't,  because  it 
happens  to  be  as  true  as  the  Gospel,  revised  ver 
sion.  Some  days  since,  I  asked  Annie  Cleaves  to 
marry  me. 


294  A   BOOK   °'  NINE    TALES. 

She.  What  particular  thing  had  she  been  playing 
to  rouse  you  to  that  point  of  enthusiasm  ? 

He.  If  my  memory  serves  me,  it  was  the  Chopin 
Nocturne  in  G  minor.  She  did  play  extremely  well, 
and  as  we  happened  to  be  in  the  conservatory 
afterward,  I  improved  the  opportunity  to  propose. 

She.    Oh,  very  naturally  ! 

He.  It  is  a  form  of  words  that  comes  very  read 
ily  to  my  lips,  as  you  know.  Annie  confessed  to 
that  very  superfluous  and  old-fashioned  sentiment 
called  love,  which  was  n't  in  good  form,  I  '11  admit ; 
but  in  consideration  for  the  object  of  her  attach 
ment,  and  the  fact  that  on  that  particular  evening 
I  was  in  love  myself,  I  managed  to  overlook  it. 

She.  Very  good  of  you,  I  'm  sure.  I  hope 
Annie  appreciated  your  generosity. 

He.  Very  likely  she  did  n't.  Your  sex  very  sel 
dom  do  appreciate  masculine  virtues ;  but  Annie 
has  a  far  more  old-fashioned  and  worse  vice  than 
love.  Why,  the  girl,  in  the  midst  of  these  en 
lightened  nineteenth-century  days,  actually  goes  to 
the  nonsensical  bother  of  keeping  a  conscience  ! 
It  must  be  more  trouble  to  attend  to,  Agnes,  than 
her  aunt  Wheeler's  seven  pet  poodles  and  three 
red- headed  parrots. 

She.  I  suppose  you  are  right.  You  don't  speak 
from  experience,  though,  do  you  ? 

He.  Oh,  no  ;  I  never  had  a  conscience  :  as  a 
boy,  I  preferred  white  mice ;  now  I  have  my 
horses,  you  know. 


A   CUBAN  MORNING  295 

She.    And  your  innumerable  loves. 

He.    If  such  trifles  are  to  be  taken  into  account. 

She.    Go  on  about  Annie. 

Pie.  Well,  on  my  confessing  how  far  I  had  car 
ried  my  flirtation  with  you  —  I  can't,  for  the  life 
of  me,  tell  how  I  happened  to  speak  of  it ;  I  am 
usually  more  discreet. 

She.    I  should  hope  so. 

He.  Oh,  I  am,  I  assure  you ;  but  the  loves  are 
so  numerous,  while  I  am  but  one,  that  they  some 
times  get  the  better  of  my  discretion.  What  is  one 
among  so  many? 

She.    Oh,  in  this  case,  absolutely  nothing. 

He.    Thank  you  again. 

She.    But  to  continue  — 

He.  Well,  to  continue,  Annie  actually  seemed 
to  think  that  you  had  some  sort  of  claim  upon  me. 
Fancy  ! 

She.    She  need  n't  have  troubled. 

He.  Oh,  of  course  not.  Why,  I  have  offered 
myself  to  dozens  of  girls,  with  no  more  idea  of 
marrying  them -than  I  have  of  becoming  a  howling 
dervish ;  and  more  than  that,  I  have  habitually 
been  accepted.  That  is  one  thing  about  you  that 
attracted  me,  do  you  know?  There  is  a  beautiful 
novelty  about  being  rejected. 

She.  So  that  is  the  secret  of  my  amusing  you,  is 
it  ?  You  ought  to  have  explained  this  to  Annie. 

He.  Oh,  she  would  n't  have  understood.  Like 
every  other  girl,  't  was  the  personal  application  that 


296  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

she  was  touched  by.  You  see  she  did  n't  know  the 
other  girls,  and  she  did  know  you ;  and  she  seems 
to  think  your  no  more  binding  than  any  other 
person's  yes.  Perhaps  she  knows  that  a  woman's 
negative  — 

She.  Really,  Arthur,  that 's  so  hackneyed  that  if 
you  have  n't  the  gallantry  not  to  say  it  you  ought 
to  be  ashamed  to  repeat  anything  so  stale. 

He.  Perhaps  you  are  right ;  I  have  known  you 
to  be  on  very  rare  occasions.  However,  Annie 
insisted  that  I  should  come,  and,  as  she  said, 
"  assure  myself  of  your  sentiments  and  of  my 
own."  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  more  absurd? 
As  if  I  did  n't  know,  all  the  time,  that  you  were 
dying  for  me ;  and  as  if  I  —  despite  my  mad  and 
overpowering  passion  for  your  lovely  self,  Miss 
Peltonville  —  could  n't  tell  as  well  in  New  York  as 
in  Cuba  whether  I  wanted  to  marry  her  or  not. 

She.  If  you  were  no  better  informed  of  your 
own  sentiments  than  of  mine,  I  don't  wonder  she 
doubted  your  conclusions. 

He.    Oh,  she  did  n't  in  the  least.  . 

She.  At  least,  Annie  may  set  her  mind  quite  at 
rest,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned. 

He.  Thank  you  so  much.  It  is  such  a  relief  to 
have  things  settled. 

She.  What  would  you  have  done  if  I  had  ac 
cepted  you? 

He.  Oh,  I  was  confident  of  my  ability  of  putting 
the  qr.estion  so  that  you  would  n't. 


A   CUBAN  MORNING.  297 

She.    I  have  almost  a  mind  to  do  it,  even  now. 

He.    Really? 

She.  Oh,  don't  be  alarmed.  There  is  one  in 
superable  obstacle. 

He.    What  is  that? 

She.    Yourself. 

He.  Then  I  am  quite  safe.  That  is  a  perma 
nent  one. 

She.  Well,  I  wish  Annie  joy  of  her  bargain.  She 
is  worthy  of  a  better  fate  ;  and  since  we  are  talking 
frankly,  I  must  say  that  what  she  can  see  in  you  I 
can't  imagine. 

He.  These  things  are  so  strange  ;  there  is  no 
accounting  for  them.  Why,  I  have  been  perfectly 
puzzled  —  do  you  know  ?  —  ever  since  I  came  last 
night,  to  tell  what  I  found  in  you  last  winter. 

She.  Since  we  seem  to  be  striving  to  outdo  each 
other  in  abuse,  it  is  quite  in  keeping  for  me  to  add, 
that  I  have  no  occasion  to  bother  my  head  on  such 
a  question,  for  I  never  pretended  to  have  found 
anything  in  you. 

He.  But  then,  as  I  said,  you  amused  me  ;  and 
one  may  sometimes  be  so  far  amused  that  — 

She.  His  amusement  may  even  amount  to  as 
tonishment,  perhaps ;  and,  by  the  way,  that  gen 
tleman  on  the  gray  horse,  just  coming  between 
the  China  laurels  with  papa,  expects  to  marry 
me. 

He.  Fred  Armstrong,  by  all  that  is  unspeak 
able  ! .  Agnes  Peltonville,  I  humble  myself  in  the 


298  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

dust  before  you ;  and  no  humiliation  could  be 
greater  than  going  down  into  Cuban  dust.  You 
are  an  angel ;  you  have  removed  my  last  fear. 

She.    Yes;  and  how? 

He.  I  was  always  jealous  of  Fred  Armstrong ; 
he  was  forever  dangling  about  Annie.  Do  I  un 
derstand  that  you  are  engaged? 

She.  Oh,  I  did  n't  say  that  I  expected  to  marry 
him ;  but  since  Annie  confesses  such  a  strong  at 
tachment  to  you  — 

He.  Oh,  I  did  n't  say  I  was  the  object  of  the 
attachment. 

\_They  sit  confronting  each  other  in  silence  a  mo 
ment,  until  the  riders,  having  dismounted,  are  seen 
approaching  the  piazza.  Then  Chester  leans  forward 
impulsively,  and  speaks  with  a  new  intensity.] 

He.    Agnes  ! 

She.    Arthur  ! 

He.  Quick  !  Before  they  come  !  You  won't 
send  me  away? 

She.    But- 

Hc.  No,  no  more  nonsense  ;  I  am  in  dead  ear 
nest  now.  You  know  I  could  n't  live  without  you, 
or  I  should  n't  have  followed  you  to  Cuba. 

She.    And  Annie  Cleaves? 

He.  Oh,  if  you  had  a  letter  from  her  yesterday, 
you  must  know  she  's  engaged  to  Bob  Wainwright. 
Is  it  yes? 

She.  (rising.')  It  would  be  a  pity  that  you 
should  have  come  so  far  for  nothing. 


A   CUBAN  MORNING.  299 

[As  he  rises  also  Jie  manages  to  catch  her  hand, 
which  he  clasps  joyously  before  the  pair  go  forward  to 
meet  the  new-comers .] 

He.  I  hope  you  had  a  pleasant  ride,  Mr.  Pel- 
tonville  ?  I  like  Marianao  so  well  that  I  have 
concluded  to  remain  a  while. 


DELIA   GRIMWET. 


DELIA    GRIMWET. 

an  ordinary  observer,  nothing 
could  be  more  commonplace  than 
Kempton,  a  decrepit  little  apology 
for  a  village,  lying  on  the  coast  of 
Maine.  Properly  speaking,  however,  no  sea 
port  can  be  utterly  commonplace,  with  its 
suggestion  of  the  mystery  of  the  sea,  the 
ships,  the  sailors  who  have  been  to  far  lands, 
the  glimpses  of  unwritten  tragedies  on  every 
hand.  But  among  sea-side  villages  Kempton 
was  surely  dull  enough,  and  dry  enough,  and 
lifeless  enough,  —  as  if  the  sea-winds  had 
sucked  its  vitality,  leaving  it  empty  and  pal 
lid  and  juiccless,  like  the  cockle-shells  which 
bleached  upon  its  sandy  beaches. 

Yet  Kempton  had  one  peculiarity  which 
marked  it  as  singular  among  all  New  England 
towns.  It  had  a  woman  to  dig  its  graves. 

Its  one  church  stood  stark  and  doleful  upon 
the  hill  at  whose  foot  lay  the  rotting  wharves  ; 
and  back  from  the  church  stretched  the 
church-yard  in  which  the  Kempton  dead 
took  their  long  repose,  scarcely  more  monot- 


304  A   BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

onous  than  their  colorless  lives.  The  sexton, 
digging  their  last  resting-places  in  the  ochery 
loam,  might  look  far  off  toward  the  sea  where 
they  had  wrested  from  the  grudging  waters  a 
scanty  subsistence ;  and  the  dead  wives,  if  so 
be  that  their  ears  were  yet  sentient,  might 
lie  at  night  and  hear  below  the  beat  of  the 
waves  which  afar  had  rolled  over  the  un 
marked  graves  of  their  sailor  husbands. 

To  and  fro  among  the  grass-grown  mounds 
the  sexton  went  daily,  quite  unmindful  of  be 
ing  the  unique  feature  of  Kempton  by  be 
longing  to  the  weaker  sex.  With  masculine 
stride  and  coarse  hands,  her  unkempt  locks 
blown  by  the  salt  winds,  the  woman  went  her 
way  and  did  her  work  with  a  steadfastness 
and  a  vigor  which  might  have  put  to  shame 
many  a  man  idling  about  the  boats  under  the 
hill.  She  was  not  an  old  woman,  —  not  even 
middle-aged,  except  with  the  premature  age 
of  toil  and  sorrow;  but  the  weather-beaten 
face,  the  stooping  shoulders,  and  the  faded 
hair  made  her  seem  old.  To  look  at  her,  it 
was  difficult  to  realize  what  her  youth  could 
have  been  like,  or  to  call  up  any  image  of 
sweet  or  gracious  maidenhood  in  which  she 
could  have  shared. 

It  was  a  gray  November  day.  The  white- 
caps  made  doubly  black  the  dark  waves  of 


DELIA   GRIM  WET  305 

the  bay,  and  the  bitter  wind  blew  freshly 
through  the  withered  grass  and  stubble,  chas 
ing  the  faded  leaves  over  Kempton  Hill  until 
they  rushed  about  the  old  meeting-house  like 
a  flight  of  terrified  witches.  A  stranger  was 
driving  slowly  up  the  road  from  the  next 
town  in  an  open  carriage,  and  as  he  came  to 
the  top  of  the  hill  he  drew  rein  before  the 
church  and  looked  about  him. 

His  gaze  was  not  that  of  one  who  beheld 
the  scene  for  the  first  time.  He  gazed  down 
at  the  irregular  houses  under  the  hill,  cuddled 
like  frightened  and  weak-kneed  sheep.  He 
looked  over  the  bay  to  the  lighthouse,  loom 
ing  ghastly  and  white  against  the  dark  sea 
and  sky.  His  glance  took  in  all  the  details 
of  the  picture,  cold  and  joyless,  devoid  alike 
of  warmth  and  color.  He  shivered  and 
sighed,  his  brows  drooping  more  heavily  yet 
over  his  dark  piercing  eyes,  and  then  turned 
his  gaze  to  objects  nearer  at  hand. 

Close  by  was  the  stark  church,  with 
weather-beaten  steeple,  wherein  half  a  dozen 
generations  of  Kempton  women,  —  the  men, 
for  the  most  part,  being  at  sea,  —  had  wor 
shipped  the  power  of  the  storm,  praying 
more  for  the  escape  from  evil  of  the  absent 
than  for  good  to  themselves.  Beyond  the 
church  appeared  the  first  headstones  of  the 


306  A   BOOK   O  NINE    TALES. 

graveyard,  the  ground  sloping  away  so  rap 
idly  that  little  more  than  the  first  row  of  slate 
slabs  was  visible  from  the  street.  With  an 
other  shiver  Mr.  Farnsworth  (for  by  that 
name  the  gentleman  played  his  part  upon 
this  world's  stage)  got  down  from  his  car 
riage,  fastened  his  horse,  and  walked  toward 
the  stones,  whose  rudely  chiselled  cherubs 
leered  at  him  through  their  tawny  rust  of 
moss  with  a  diabolic  and  sinister  mirthfulness. 

As  Mr.  Farnsworth  opened  the  sagging 
and  unpainted  gate  of  the  enclosure,  he  be 
came  aware  that  the  place  was  not  empty. 
The  head  and  shoulders  of  a  human  being 
were  visible  half-way  down  the  hill,  now  and 
then  obscured  by  the  dull-reddish  heap  of 
earth  thrown  up  from  a  partially  dug  grave. 

The  visitor  made  his  way  down  the  irregu 
lar  path,  so  steep  as  to  be  almost  like  a  rude 
flight  of  stairs,  and  as  he  neared  the  worker, 
he  suddenly  perceived,  with  something  of  a 
shock,  that  the  grave-digger  was  a  woman. 
She  worked  as  if  familiar  with  her  task,  a 
man's  battered  hat  pushed  back  from  her 
forehead,  over  which  her  faded  hair  straggled 
in  confusion,  and  across  which  certain  grimy 
streaks  bore  witness  that  she  had  not  escaped 
the  primal  curse,  but  labored  in  the  sweat  of 
her  brow. 


DELIA   GRIMIVET.  307 

Kempton's  peculiarity  in  the  matter  of  its 
sexton  had  not  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
stranger  before,  although  he  once  had  known 
the  village  life  somewhat  intimately.  He  re 
garded  the  woman  with  a  double  curiosity,  — 
to  see  what  she  was  like  and  to  discover 
whether  perchance  he  had  ever  known  her. 
He  paused  as  he  neared  her,  resting  one 
nicely  gloved  hand  upon  a  tilted  stone  which 
perpetuated  the  memory  and  recorded  the 
virtues  of  a  captain  who  reposed  in  some 
chill  cave  under  the  Northern  seas.  Some 
slight  sound  caught  the  car  of  the  sexton, 
who  until  then  had  not  perceived  his  ap 
proach  ;  she  looked  up  at  him  stolidly,  and 
as  stolidly  looked  down  again,  continuing  her 
work  without  interruption.  If  there  remained 
any  consciousness  of  the  strangeness  of 
her  occupation,  or  if  there  stirred  any  wo 
manly  shame  to  be  so  observed,  they  were 
betrayed  by  no  outward  sign.  She  threw  up 
the  dull-yellow7  earth  at  the  feet  of  the  new 
comer  as  unmoved  as  if  she  had  still  only  the 
dwellers  in  the  graves  as  companions  of  her 
labor. 

"  Don't  you  find  this  rather  hard  work, 
my  good  woman?"  the  gentleman  inquired 
at  length,  more  by  way  of  breaking  the  si 
lence  than  from  any  especial  interest. 


308  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

"  Yes,"  the  sexton  returned  impassively, 
"  it's  hard  enough." 

"  It  is  rather  unusual  work  for  a  woman, 
too,"  he  said. 

To  this  very  obvious  remark  she  returned 
no  answer,  a  stone  to  which  she  had  come  in 
her  digging  seeming  to  absorb  all  her  atten 
tion.  She  unearthed  the  obstacle  with  some 
difficulty,  seized  it  with  her  rough  hands,  and 
threw  it  up  at  the  feet  of  the  stranger,  who 
watched  her  with  that  idle  interest  which 
labor  begets  in  the  unconcerned  observer. 

"Do  you  always  do  this  work?"  Farns- 
worth  asked  at  length. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  laconic  return. 

"  But  the  old  sexton,  — Joe  Grimwet,  —  is 
he  gone?  " 

The  woman  looked  up  with  some  interest 
at  this  indication  that  the  other  had  some 
previous  acquaintance  with  Kempton  and  its 
people.  She  did  not,  however,  stop  her  la 
bor,  as  a  man  would  probably  have  stopped. 

"  Yes,"  she  said.  "  He  's  buried  over  yon 
der,  • —  there  beyond  the  burdocks." 

The  gentleman  changed  his  position  un 
easily.  Some  subtile  disquietude  had  arisen 
to  disturb  his  serenity.  The  wind  rustled 
mournfully  among  the  dry  leaves,  the  peb 
bles  rattled  against  the  spade  of  the  grave- 


DELIA   GRIM  WET.  309 

digger,  increasing  the  sombreness  of  a  scene 
which  might  easily  affect  one  at  all  suscepti 
ble  to  outward  influences.  In  such  an  atmos 
phere  a  sensitive  nature  not  unfrequently  ex 
periences  a  certain  feeling  of  unreality,  as  if 
dealing  with  scenes  and  creatures  of  the  im 
agination  rather  than  with  actualities ;  and 
Farnsworth,  whatever  the  delicacy  of  his 
mental  fibre,  was  conscious  of  such  a  sense 
at  this  moment.  He  hastened  to  speak  again, 
as  if  the  sound  of  his  own  voice  were  needed 
to  assure  him  of  the  genuineness  of  the  place 
and  scene. 

"But  how  long  has  he  been  dead?"  he 
asked.  "And  his  daughter;  what  became  of 
her?" 

The  grave-digger  straightened  herself  to 
her  full  height;  brushing  back  her  wind 
blown  hair  with  one  grimy  hand,  she  raised 
her  face  so  that  her  deep-set  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  the  questioner's  face. 

"  So  you  knew  Delia  Grimwet?  "  she  said. 
"When  was  you  here  before?     It 'd  go 
for  you  to  make  her   out   now,    if   it's 
since." 

"Is  she  here  still?"  Farnsworth  persisted, 
ignoring  her  question. 

"  Yes,"  the  sexton  replied,  suddenly  sink 
ing  back  into  the  unfinished  grave  as  a 


310  A   BOOK  O'    NINE    TAILS. 

frightened  animal  might  retreat  into  its  den. 
"  Yes  ;  she  lives  in  the  old  place." 

"Alone?" 

"  Her  and  the  boy." 

He  recoiled  a  step,  as  if  the  mention  of  a 
child  startled  or  repelled  him.  Yet  to  a  close 
observer  it  might  have  seemed  as  if  he  were 
making  an  effort  to  press  her  with  further 
questions.  If  so  his  courage  did  not  prove 
sufficient,  and  he  watched  in  silence  while  the 
woman  before  him  went  steadily  on  with  her 
arduous  work.  Presently,  however,  he  ad 
vanced  again  toward  the  edge  of  the  pit, 
which  was  rapidly  approaching  completion 
under  her  familiar  labor. 

"  Should  I  find  her  at  home  at  this  time?  " 
he  inquired.  "  Or  would  she  be  out  at 
work?" 

The  woman  started  and  crouched,  much  as 
if  she  had  received  or  expected  a  blow. 

"  She  's  out,  most  likely,"  she  replied  in 
a  muffled  voice.  "She'll  be  home  along 
about  sundown." 

Farnsworth  lingered  irresolutely  a  moment 
or  two,  as  if  there  were  many  things  concern 
ing  which  he  could  wish  to  ask ;  but,  as  the 
woman  gave  him  no  encouragement,  he 
turned  at  last  and  climbed  the  slippery,  rag 
ged  path  up  to  the  church,  untethered  his 


DELIA   GRIMWET.  311 

horse,  and  drove  slowly  down  the  hill  to  the 
village. 

Cap'n  Nat  Hersey  was  just  coming  out  of 
the  village  store,  and  to  him  Farnsworth 
addressed  an  inquiry  where  he  might  find 
shelter  for  himself  and  horse. 

"  Well,"  the  cap'n  responded,  with  the  de 
liberation  of  a  man  who  has  very  little  to  say 
and  his  whole  life  to  say  it  in,  "well  I  dunno 
but  ye  might  get  a  chance  with  Widder 
Bemis,  an'  I  dunno  as  ye  could;  but  there 
ain't  no  harm  trying,  as  I  knows  of." 

Further  inquiry  regarding  the  whereabouts 
of  the  domicile  of  the  Widow  Bemis  led  to 
an  offer  on  the  part  of  Cap'n  Hersey  to  act 
as  pilot  to  that  haven.  He  declined,  how 
ever,  to  take  a  seat  in  the  buggy.  The  Cap'n 
had  his  own  opinion  of  land-vehicles.  A  man 
might  with  perfect  assurance  trust  himself  in 
a  boat;  but,  for  his  own  part,  the  cap'n  had 
no  faith  in  those  dangerous  structures  which 
roam  about  with  nothing  better  than  dry  land 
under  them.  He  walked  along  by  the  side 
of  the  carriage,  conversing  affably  with  the 
stranger  under  his  convoy. 

"Is  n't  it  a  queer  notion  to  have  a  woman 
for  a  sexton?"  Farnsworth  asked,  as  they 
wended  along. 

"  Well,  yes,"   the  captain  returned  reflect- 


312  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES, 

ively.  "  Yes,  it  is  sort  of  curious.  Folks 
mostly  speaks  of  it  that  comes  here.  It  is 
curious,  if  ye  look  at  it  that  way.  But  it  all 
come  about  as  natural  as  a  barnacle  on  a 
keel.  Old  Sexton  Grirmvet  kept  getting  con 
siderable  feeble,  and  Dele  she  took  to  help 
ing  him  with  his  work.  She  was  sort  of  cut 
off  from  folks,  as  ye  may  say,  owing  to  hav 
ing  a  baby  and  no  father  to  show  for  it,  and 
she  naturally  took  to  heaving  anchor  alone, 
or  leastways  along  with  the  old  man.  And 
when  the  old  man  was  took  down  with  a  lan- 
guishment,  she  turned  to  and  did  all  his  work 
for  him,  —  having  gradually  worked  into  it, 
as  you  may  say." 

The  cap'n  paused  to  recover  from  his  as 
tonishment  at  having  been  betrayed  into  so 
long  a  speech ;  but,  as  the  stranger  had  the 
air  of  expecting  him  to  continue,  he  presently 
went  on  again  : 

"There  was  them  that  wanted  her  turned 
out  when  old  Grimwet  died.  Some  said  a 
woman  of  that  character  had  n't  ought  to  have 
no  connection  with  the  church,  even  to  dig 
ging  its  graves.  But  Parson  Eaton  he  was 
good  for  'em  —  I  Ve  always  noticed  that  when 
these  pious  men  gets  their  regular  mad  up 
they  most  generally  have  things  their  own 
way;  and  he  preached  'cm  a  sermon  about 


DELIA   GRIMWET.  313 

the  Samaritan  woman,  and  Mary  Magdalene, 
and  a  lot  more  of  them  disreputable  Scripture 
women-folks,  and,  though  he  never  mentioned 
Dele  by  name,  they  all  knew  what  he  was  driv 
ing  at,  and  they  wilted.  "Tvvas  a  pitiful  sight 
to  see  the  girl  a-digging  her  own  father's  grave 
up  there.  Me  and  Tom  Tobey  and  Zenas 
Faston  took  hold  and  finished  it  for  her." 

They  moved  on  in  silence  a  moment  or 
two.  Farnsworth's  gaze  was  fixed  upon  the 
darkening  bay,  and  no  longer  interrogated  his 
companion ;  but  the  latter  soon  again  took 
up  his  narrative :  — 

"  Twas  well  the  parson  stood  up  for  Dele, 
too ;  women-folks  is  so  cussed  hard  on  each 
other.  They  would  n't  ha'  let  the  girl  live,  I 
believe.  I  always  were  of  the  notion  there 

warn  't  no  harm  in  Dele.  Some city  chap 

got  the  better  of  her.  She  never  was  over- 
smart,  but  she  was  awful  pretty;  and  I  never 
believed  there  was  any  harm  in  her.  At  any 
rate,  she  digs  a  grave  as  well  as  a  man,  and 
I  guess  them  that 's  in  'em  don't  lay  awake 
none  thinking  who  tucked  'em  in." 

The  house  of  the  Widow  Bemis  was  by 
this  time  reached,  and  that  estimable  lady, 
who  in  the  summer  furnished  accomodations 
to  a  boarder  whenever  that  rare  blessing  was 
to  be  secured  in  Kempton,  readily  undertook 


314  A  BOOK  O  NINE   TALES. 

the  charge  of  Mr.  Farnsworth  and  his  horse 
for  the  night.  The  latter  was  given  into  the 
care  of  her  daughter,  for  the  frequent  ab 
sences  of  the  men  had  accustomed  the  dam 
sels  of  Kempton  to  those  labors  which  in  in 
land  villages  are  more  frequently  left  to  their 
brothers  ;  and  Farnsworth  strolled  off  toward 
the  wharves,  leaving  the  widow  Bemis  and 
Cap'n  Hersey  in  an  agony  of  curiosity  in  re 
gard  to  himself  and  his  errand. 

Whatever  may  have  been  Farnsworth's 
feelings  at  the  discovery  that  the  daughter  of 
the  dead  sexton  and  the  woman  of  whom 
he  had  asked  tidings  of  her  were  identical,  — 
and  they  must  have  been  both  deep  and 
strong  —  he  had  given  no  outward  sign.  But 
now  the  settling  of  his  brows,  and  the  disquiet 
apparent  in  his  eyes  betrayed  his  inward  con 
flict.  He  strolled  out  upon  one  of  the  rotting 
wharves  about  which  the  tide  lapped  in 
mournful  iteration,  folded  his  arms  upon  a 
breast-high  post,  and  stood  gazing  seaward. 

The  retrospect  which  occupied  his  mind 
was  scarcely  more  cheerful  than  the  gray 
scene  which  spread  before  his  eyes.  How 
awful  are  the  corpses  of  dead  sins  which 
memory  casts  up,  as  the  sea  its  victims ! 
The  betrayal  of  a  woman  is  a  ghastly  thing 
when  one  looks  back  upon  it  stripped  of  the 


DELIA   GRIMWET.  315 

garlands  and  enchantments  of  passion  and 
temptation ;  and  to  Farnsworth,  with  the 
image  fresh  in  his  rememberance  of  that 
faded,  earth-stained  woman  digging  a  grave 
upon  the  bleak  hillside,  the  fault  of  his  youth 
seemed  an  incredible  dream  which  only  stub 
born  and  stinging  memory  converted  into  a 
possibility.  A  retrospect  is  apt  to  be  essen 
tially  a  plea  for  self  against  conscience ;  but 
in  his  gloomy  revery  Farnsworth  found  scant 
excuse  for  the  wreck  he  had  made  of  the  life 
of  Delia  Grirmvet.  He  had  gone  away, 
married,  and  lived  honored  and  prosperous. 
He  would  have  forgotten,  had  not  some  no 
bility  of  his  nature  prevented.  With  the 
stubbornness  of  his  race,  he  had  fought  long 
and  determinedly  against  his  conscience,  but 
he  had  been  forced  to  yield  at  last.  The 
death  of  his  wife,  to  whom  he  had  been  ten 
derly  attached,  had  at  once  left  him  free  to 
make  such  reparation  as  might  still  be  possi 
ble,  and  had  softened  him  as  only  sharp 
sorrow  can.  He  had  come  to  Kempton  with 
the  determination  of  finding  Delia,  and  of 
doing  whatever  could  be  done,  at  whatever 
cost  to  himself. 

He  had  been  unprepared,  however,  for  the 
woman  he  found.  He  had  left  a  fresh,  beau 
tiful  young  girl;  ten  years  had  transformed 


316  A  BOOK  O'  NINE   TALES. 

her  into  a  repulsive  old  woman.  He  had  no 
means  of  adequately  measuring  the  force  of 
the  storms  of  scorn  and  poverty  and  sorrow 
which  had  beaten  upon  Delia  Grimwet  in  the 
years  that  had  made  of  him  the  cultured, 
delicately  nurtured  man  he  was.  What  man 
ever  appreciated  the  woe  of  the  woman  he 
betrays?  Indeed,  what  measure  has  a  man 
of  the  sorrow  of  any  woman?  Farnsworth 
had  painfully  to  adjust  himself  to  a  condition 
of  affairs  for  which  he  should  have  been  pre 
pared,  yet  which  took  him  absolutely  by 
surprise. 

He  lingered  upon  the  bleak  wharf,  uncon 
sciously  the  object  of  much  mildly  specula 
tive  curiosity,  until  the  twilight  began  to  fall. 
Then  with  a  shiver,  no  less  of  mind  than  of 
body,  he  shook  off  his  painful  abstraction, 
and  turned  his  steps  toward  the  path,  once 
well  known,  which  led  to  the  house  of  Delia 
Grimwet.  It  seemed  to  him,  as  he  paused  a 
brief  instant  with  his  hand  upon  the  old 
knocker,  as  if  nothing  here  had  changed  in  ten 
years  The  sunlight  would  have  shown  him 
traces  of  decay,  but  in  the  gathering  dusk 
the  house  seemed  a  pallid  phantom  from  the 
past,  unchanged  but  lifeless. 

But  his  knock  at  once  destroyed  all  illu 
sions,  since  it  summoned  the  woman  who 


DELIA   GRIMWET.  317 

belonged  not  at  all  to  that  past  which  he  re 
membered,  but  to  the  pitiful  and  too  tangible 
present.  She  held  her  guttering  candle  up 
without  a  word,  and,  having  identified  him, 
made  him,  without  speaking,  a  signal  to  enter. 
When  Farnsworth  had  left  her  in  the  after 
noon,  Delia  crouched  in  the  bottom  of  the 
grave  she  was  digging,  her  first  feeling  being 
an  unreasoning  desire  for  concealment.  She 
thought  she  should  remain  passive  if  the  sides 
of  the  pit  collapsed  and  buried  her.  In  the 
old  days  before  her  boy  was  born  she  had 
been  night  after  night  out  on  the  old  wharves, 
praying  for  courage  to  drown  herself.  After 
the  child  came,  her  feelings  changed,  and  she 
longed  only  to  escape  and  to  take  her  son  away 
from  the  scorn  and  the  sordid  life  which  sur 
rounded  them.  Gradually  she  had  become 
hardened ;  hers  was  one  of  those  common 
natures  to  which  custom  and  pain  are  opiates, 
mercifully  dulling  all  sensibilities.  To-day 
the  appearance  of  her  betrayer  had  revivified 
all  the  old  impressions,  and  for  a  moment 
seemed  to  transport  her  to  the  early  days  when 
her  anguish  was  new.  The  keenest  pangs  of 
sorrow  stabbed  her  afresh,  and  she  lived  again 
the  bitter  moments  of  her  sin  and  shame. 
Her  instinct  was  to  flee  from  the  man  whose 
presence  meant  to  her  only  pain. 


3l8  A   BOOK   a   NINC    TALUS. 

But  habit  is  strong,  and  presently  the 
fading  light  reminded  the  sexton  that  her 

o  o 

work  was  still  unfinished,  and  that  Widow 
Pettigrove,  who  was  past  all  earthly  tribula 
tion,  must  have  her  last  bed  prepared,  what 
ever  the  woe  of  the  living  woman  who  worked 
at  it  with  trembling  hands  and  a  sensation  as 
if  a  demon  had  clutched  her  by  the  throat. 
Yet  work  was  not  unmerciful;  it  brought 
some  relief,  since  it  served  to  dilute  the 
thought  which  rushed  dizzyingly  to  her  brain, 
and  by  the  time  her  toil  was  completed  she 
was  steadier.  When  she  opened  the  door  to 
Farnsworth  she  was  not  unlike  her  usual 
stolid  self.  She  perceived  at  a  glance  that  he 
had  learned  who  she  was,  and  she  hoped  in 
a  blind,  aching  way,  that  he  had  not  betrayed 
his  presence  to  the  neighbors,  thus  to  re 
awaken  all  the  old  stinging  flight  of  bitter 
words. 

Farnsworth  followed  Delia  into  the  kitchen, 
without  even  those  greetings  which  habit 
renders  so  involuntary  that  only  in  the  most 
poignant  moments  are  they  disregarded. 
With  their  past  between  them  it  was  not  easy 
to  break  the  silence.  Farnsworth  seated  him 
self,  and  the  woman  stood  regarding  him. 
There  was  in  her  attitude  all  the  questioning, 
all  the  agony,  of  her  years  of  suffering.  Her 


DELIA   GRIM  WET.  319 

wrongs  and  her  sorrows  gave  her  a  dignity 
before  which  he  shrank  as  he  could  not  have 
quailed  under  the  most  withering  reproaches. 
Whatever  words  he  would  have  spoken  - 
and  no  man  can  come  deliberately  to  so  im 
portant  a  crisis  without  formulating,  even  if 
unconsciously,  the  plea  which  his  self-defence 
will  make  —  were  forgotten,  or  seemed  miser 
ably  inadequate  now.  What  were  words  to 
this  woman,  pallid  and  worn  before  her  time 
with  privation,  anguish,  and  unwomanly  toil? 
The  contrast  between  his  rich  and  careful 
dress  and  her  coarse  garb,  between  his  white 
hands  and  her  knotted  fingers,  between  his 
high-bred,  pale  face  and  her  cowed,  weather- 
beaten  countenance,  was  too  violent  not  to  be 
apparent  to  them  both,  —  as  if  they  were  in 
some  strange  way  merely  spectators  looking 
dispassionately  at  this  wretched  meeting  of 
those  who  had  once  been  passionate  lovers. 

With  each  moment  the  silence  became  more 
oppressive ;  yet  as  each  moment  dragged 
by  it  became  more  difficult  to  break  the 
stillness.  Only  a  man  utterly  devoid  of  re 
morse  or  feeling  could  have  framed  upon 
his  tongue  commonplace  phrases  at  such  a 
time.  It  seemed  to  Farnsworth  as  if  he 
were  brought  to  judgment  before  the  whole 
universe.  His  throat  became  parched.  He 


320  A   BOOK   O'   NINE    TALES. 

longed  to  have  the  candle  and  the  flames 
flickering  in  the  old  fireplace  go  out  in  dark 
ness,  and  take  from  his  sight  the  Nemesis 
that  confronted  him. 

He  broke  the  silence  at  last  with  a  cry :  — 

"Ah,  my  God,  Delia!  What  have  I 
done?" 

She  wavered  as  she  stood,  putting  out  her 
hand  as  if  reaching  for  support.  Then  she 
half  staggered  backward  into  a  chair. 

"  There  is  nothing  I  can  say !  "  Farnsworth 
went  on  vehemently.  "  There  is  nothing  I 
can  do  !  I  came  here  dreaming  of  making 
reparation  ;  but  there  is  no  reparation  I  can 
make.  There  is  nothing  that  can  change  the 
past,  —  nothing  that  will  undo  what  I  have 
done  to  you.  Oh,  my  God  !  How  little  I 
dreamed  it  would  be  like  this  !  " 

"  No,"  she  said  slowly,  almost  stupidly, 
"  nothing  can  undo  it." 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me?"  he  began. 
"Why—" 

But  the  words  rebuked^ him  before  the}' 
were  spoken.  He  buried  his  face  in  his 
hands,  and  again  they  were  silent.  What 
the  woman,  —  this  woman  who  had  never 
been  able  to  think  much,  even  in  her  best 
days,  and  who  now  was  blunted  and  dulled 
almost  to  stupidity,  —  what  she  felt  in  those 


DELIA   GRIM  WET.  321 

bitter  moments,  who  can  tell?  The  man's 
soul  was  a  tumult  of  wild  regret  and  un 
availing  remorse,  while  she  waited  again  for 
him  to  speak. 

"  But,"  Farnsworth  said  at  length,  a  new 
idea  seizing  him,  "but  the  —  our  child,  Delia? 
The  boy?" 

A  shuddering  seized  her.  Unused  to  giv 
ing  way  to  her  emotions,  she  was  torn  by  her 
excited  feelings  almost  to  the  verge  of  con 
vulsions.  She  clutched  the  arms  of  her  chair 
and  set  her  teeth  together.  In  her  incohe 
rent  attempts  at  thought,  as  she  had  delved 
among  her  graves,  there  had  occurred  to  her 
the  possibility  that  the  father  might  sometime 
take  his  child  from  her.  Now  this  fear  pos 
sessed  her  like  a  physical  epilepsy.  Twice 
she  tried  to  speak,  and  only  emitted  a  gurgling 
sound  as  if  strangling.  He  sprang  toward 
her,  but  a  sudden  repulsion  gave  her  self- 
control.  She  put  out  her  hands  as  if  to  ward 
him  off. 

"  Oh,  my  boy,  my  boy!  "  she  cried,  break 
ing  out  into  hysterical  sobs.  "  My  boy,  my 
boy!  " 

She  wrung  her  hands,  and  twisted  them 
together  in  fierce  contortions  which  fright 
ened  Farnsworth ;  but  she  still  would  not 
allow  him  to  approach  her.  She  struggled 


322  A  BOOK   O'  NINE    TALES. 

for  composure,  writhing  in  paroxysms  dread 
ful  to  see. 

"  Oh,  my  child  !  "  she  cried  out,  in  a  tone 
new  and  piercing;  "no,  no!  not  him!  Oh, 
God  !  You  cannot  have  my  boy  !  " 

Farnsworth  retreated  sharply. 

He  had  not  considered  this.  Indeed,  so 
different  was  everything  he  found  from  every 
thing  he  had  expected,  that  whatever  he  had 
preconsidered  was  swept  out  of  existence  as 
irrelevant.  He  was  confronted  with  a  catas 
trophe  in  which  it  was  necessary  to  judge 
unerringly  and  to  act  instantly,  yet  which 
paralyzed  all  his  powers  by  its  strangeness 
and  its  horror.  He  groped  his  way  back  to 
his  chair  and  sat  down,  leaving  the  silence 
again  -  unbroken  save  by  her  convulsive 
breathing  and  his  deep-drawn  sighs. 

All  at  once  a  new  sound  broke  in  upon 
them,  and  the  mother  started  to  her  feet. 

"  He  is  coming !  "  she  gasped  hoarsely. 
"  I  sent  him  away ;  but  he  has  come  back. 
He  could  not  keep  away,  my  beautiful  boy." 

Her  face  was  illumined  with  a  love  which 
wellnigh  transfigured  it.  The  door  was  opened 
violently,  and  the  boy  came  rudely  in,  —  a 
gaunt,  rough  whelp  of  a  dozen  summers, 
defiant,  bold,  and  curious. 

"  I    knew   there   was    something    up,"    the 


DELIA   GRIMIVET.  323 

young  rascal  observed  with  much  self-com 
placency.  "  I  knew  when  you  sent  me  off 
to  stay  all  night  that  somebody's  funeral  was 
comin'  off,  and  I  was  bound  I  'd  be  here  to 
see  it." 

Neither  the  mother  nor  the  father  returned 
any  answer.  Ordinary  feelings  were  so  abso 
lutely  swept  away  that  the  woman  did  not 
even  remember  that  she  should  have  at 
tempted  to  quiet  and  to  excuse  the  intruder. 
Even  the  maternal  pride  which  would  usually 
have  been  troubled  by  the  impression  the 
child's  rudeness  must  make  upcn  her  guest 
was  overwhelmed  by  the  greater  emotion 
which  possessed  her  whole  being. 

Farnsworth  had  never  been  more  keenly 
alive  in  every  fibre  of  his  being  than  at  this 
moment.  All  his  family  pride,  his  refined 
tastes,  his  delicate  nature,  revolted  from  a 
kinship  with  the  ugly,  uncouth  child  who 
stood  grinning  maliciously  upon  his  guilty 
parents.  His  impulse,  almost  too  strong  to 
be  resisted,  was  to  turn  back  and  hide  himself 
again  in  the  world  from  which  he  had  come, 
—  to  leave  this  woman  and  her  loutish  child 
in  the  quiet  and  obscurity  in  which  he  had 
found  them.  But  he  was  nobler  than  his 
impulses  and  had  paid  already  too  dearly  for 
rashness  ;  the  claim  of  a  son  upon  the  father 


324  A  BOOK  O'  NINE    TALES. 

who  has  brought  him  into  the  world  grasped 
his  sense  of  justice  like  a  hand  of  steel. 

He  rose  to  his  feet  firm  and  determined. 

"Go  away  now,"  he  said  to  the  boy  quietly, 
but  in  a  voice  which  even  the  urchin  felt  ad 
mitted  of  no  disobedience.  "  I  wish  to  talk 
with  your  mother.  I  will  see  you  to-morrow." 

"Yes,  Farnsworth,"  the  mother  said  plead 
ingly.  "  Go  to  bed  now.  I  will  come  to  you 
before  long.  That 's  a  good  boy." 

The  boy  slowrly  and  unwillingly  withdrew, 
his  reluctance  showing  how  rare  obedience  was 
to  him,  and  the  parents  were  once  more  alone. 

"  You  have  given  him  my  name,"  were 
Farnsworth's  first  words,  as  the  door  closed 
behind  his  son. 

"  It  was  father  who  did  that.  He  said  he 
should  remember  to  curse  you  every  time  the 
name  was  spoken." 

"And  you?"  the  other  asked,  almost  with 
a  shudder. 

"I  did  not  care.  Cursing  could  not  change 
things.  Only  I  would  not  let  him  do  it  before 
the  boy.  I  did  n't  want  him  to  know  what 
sort  of  a  father  he  had." 

In  the  midst  of  his  self-abasement  some 
hidden  fibre  of  resentment  and  wounded 
vanity  tingled  at  her  words;  but  he  would 
not  heed  it. 


DELIA   GRIMIVET.  325 

"  I  am  not  so  wholly  bad,  Delia,"  he  said  in 
a  moment.  "  I  came  back  to  marry  you.  It 
will  not  change  or  mend  the  past;  but  it  is 
the  best  I  can  do  now." 

"  It  is  no  use  to  talk  of  that,"  she  returned 
wearily ;  "  you  and  I  are  done  with  each 
other.  Even  I  can  see  that." 

She  was  spent  with  the  violence  of  her 
emotions,  and  only  longed  to  have  Farns- 
worth  leave  her.  She  was  keenly  sensitive 
now  of  the  nicety  of  his  attire,  the  contrast 
between  him  and  her  meagre  surroundings. 
The  shamefacedness  of  the  poor  overwhelmed 
her.  She  rose  with  uneven  steps  and  trem 
bling  hands,  and  began  to  put  things  to  rights 
a  little.  She  snuffed  the  ill-conditioned  candle, 
and  trimmed  the  fire,  whose  drift-wood  sent 
out  tongues  of  colored  flame.  She  set  back 
into  their  usual  gaunt  and  vulgar  order  the 
chairs  which  had  been  disturbed.. 

Farnsworth  watched  her  with  an  aching 
heart 

"  Delia,"  he  said  at  length,  "  come  and  sit 
down.  We  must  decide  what  it  is  best  to  do." 

She  obeyed  him,  although  with  evident 
reluctance.  All  the  brief  dignity  which  her 
elevation  of  mood  had  imparted  had  vanished 
now,  leaving  her  more  haggard  and  worn 
than  ever.  A  faded,  prematurely  old  woman, 


326  A  BOOK   O   NINE    TALES. 

she  sat  twisting  her  red,  stained  hands  in  a 
vain  attempt  to  hide  their  ugliness  in  the 
folds  of  her  poor  dress.  Even  self-pity  in 
Farnsvvorth's  breast  began  to  vanish  in  the 
depth  of  compassion  which  the  sexton 
excited. 

"  Delia,"  he  said,  "  I  must  think  for  us 
both,  and  for  the  boy.  He  must  be  con 
sidered.  For  his  sake  we  must  be  married." 

It  was  at  once  with  a  sense  of  relief  and  of 
humiliation  that  he  saw  how  she  shrank  from 
this  proposition.  To  have  fallen  from  god- 
hood  in  the  meanest  woman's  eyes  is  the 
keenest  thrust  at  man's  pride.  It  gave  Farns- 
worth  a  new  conception  that  the  gulf  between 
them  must  look  as  impassable  from  her  side 
as  from  his.  He  had  thus  far  been  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  sacrifices  he  himself  was 
making  to  consider  that  all  the  desirabilities 
of  his  world  would  not  appeal  to  her  as  to 
him,  —  that  its  very  fulness  and  richness 
which  so  held  and  delighted  him  would  con 
fuse  and  repel  her. 

"  It  is  of  no  use !  "  he  exclaimed,  starting 
up.  "  I  must  have  time  to  think.  I  will 
come  back  in  the  morning.  Think  your 
self,  Delia,  —  not  of  me,  or  even  of  yourself, 
so  much  as  of  the  boy.  It  is  of  him  that  we 
must  have  the  first  care.  Nothing  can  much 


DELIA   GRIMWET.  327 

change   our    lives;    but  the  world    is    before 
him.     Good-night." 

However  different  may  have  been  the  re 
flexions  of  Farnsworth  and  of  Delia  Grimwet 
through  that  long,  sad  night,  their  conclusions 
must  have  been  in  some  respects  identical, 
for  when  the  former  came  to  the  house  in  the 
morning  with  the  astonished  clergyman  the 
woman  acquiesced  without  any  discussion  in 
the  performance  of  the  marriage  ceremony. 
It  was  an  occasion  which  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Eaton  long  remembered,  and  of  which  he 
told  to  the  end  of  his  life,  filling  out,  it  must 
be  confessed,  as  time  went  on,  its  spare  facts 
with  sundry  incidents,  trifling,  it  is  true, 
yet  gradually  overlaying  the  bare  truth  with 
a  completeness  which  the  clerical  gossip  him 
self,  whose  belief  always  kept  pace  with  his 
invention,  was  far  from  realizing.  The  only 
thing  he  could  with  accuracy  have  told,  be 
yond  the  simple  fact  of  the  marriage,  was  that 
when,  according  to  his  wont,  he  attempted  to 
add  a  few  words  of  exhortation  and  moral  re 
flection,  the  bridegroom  cut  him  short  and 
showed  him  to  the  door  with  a  courtesy 
perfect  but  irresistible,  the  rebuff  somewhat 
softened  by  the  liberality  of  the  fee  which 
accompanied  the  dismissal. 

The  boy  during  these  singular  proceedings 


328  A  ROOK   O"  NINE   TALES. 

• 

had  remained  in  a  state  of  excited  astonish 
ment  almost  amounting  to  stupefaction ;  but 
when  the  newly  united  family  were  alone  to 
gether,  his  natural  perversity  broke  out,  and 
showed  itself  in  its  natural  and  unamiable 
colors.  To  the  father  the  child's  every  un 
couth  word  and  act  were  the  most  acute 
torture ;  and  the  mother,  partly  by  woman's 
instinct,  partly  from  previous  acquaintance 
with  her  husband's  fastidiousness,  was  to 
a  great  degree  sensible  of  this.  She  made 
no  effort,  however,  to  restrain  her  child.  She 
seemed  to  have  thrown  off  all  responsibility 
upon  the  father,  and  busied  herself  in  prepar 
ations  for  the  boy's  departure,  about  which, 
although  neither  had  spoken  of  it,  there 
seemed  to  be  some  tacit  understanding. 

The  forenoon  was  well  worn  when  Farns- 
worth  came  to  the  door  with  his  carriage,  for 
which  he  had  gone  in  person. 

"  Come,  Delia,"  he  said,  entering  the  house. 
"  We  may  as  well  leave  everything  as  it  is.  I 
told  Mrs.  Bcmis  to  lock  up  the  house  and 
see  to  it.  Arc  you  ready?  " 

"  Farnsworth  is,"  she  replied,  seating  her 
self  in  a  low  chair  and  drawing  to  her  side  the 
uncouth  boy,  who  struggled  to  get  free. 

He  broke  in  rudely,  announcing  his  readi 
ness,  his  joy  at  leaving  Kempton,  and  his  sat- 


DELIA   GRIM  WET.  329 

isfaction  at  wearing  his  Sunday  jacket,  which 
to  his  father  looked  poor  enough. 

"But  you,  Delia?"  her  husband  inquired, 
putting  up  his  hand  to  quiet  the  child.  "  Are 
you  ready?  " 

"  I  am  not  going." 

Whether  it  was  relief,  remorse,  or  as 
tonishment  which  overwhelmed  him,  John 
Farnsworth  could  not  have  told.  He  stood 
speechless,  looking  at  his  wife  like  one  sud 
denly  stricken  dumb.  The  boy  filled  in  the 
pause  with  noisy  expostulations,  depriving 
the  tragedy  of  even  the  poor  dignity  of  si 
lence.  The  father  knew  from  the  outset  that 
remonstrances  would  not  be  likely  to  avail, 
yet  he  remonstrated ;  perhaps,  for  human 
nature  is  subtle  beyond  word,  he  was  uncon 
sciously  for  that  reason  the  more  earnest  in 
his  pleading.  He  would  have  been  glad 

could    this  woman  and  her  child  have  been 

« 

swept  out  of  existence.  Already  he  had  to 
hold  himself  strongly  in  check,  lest  the  re 
action  which  had  followed  his  heroic  resolve 
to  marry  Delia  should  show  itself;  but 
he  choked  back  the  feeling  with  all  his 
resolution. 

"  No,"  Delia  persistently  said,  her  eyes  dry, 
her  voice  harsh  from  huskiness.  "  I  Ve  no 
place  anywhere  but  here.  It  is  too  late  now. 


330  A  BOOK  a   NINE    TALES. 

I  Ve  more  feeling  than  I  thought,  for  I  do 
care  something  even  now  to  be  an  honest 
woman  in  the  sight  of  my  neighbors ;  and 
that  '11  help  me  bear  it,  I  suppose.  Take  the 
boy,  and  do  for  him  all  you  owed  to  me.  I 
should  spoil  all  if  I  went.  He  is  best  quit  of 
me  if  he  's  to  please  you  and  grow  like  you 
I  '11  stay  here  and  dig  graves ;  I  am  fit  for 
nothing  else.  I  want  nothing  of  you.  I 
married  you  for  the  boy's  sake,  and  for  his 
sake  I  break  my  heart  and  send  him  away ; 
but  I  will  have  nothing  for  myself.  The 
days  when  I  would  have  taken  a  penny  from 
you  are  long  gone." 

She  spoke  calmly  enough,  but  with  a  cer 
tain  poignant  stress  which  made  every  word 
fall  like  a  weight.  He  did  not  urge  her 
further.  He  held  out  his  hand,  into  which 
she  laid  hers  lifelessly. 

"  Good-bye,"  he  said.  "  As  God  sees  rge, 
Delia,  I  '11  do  my  best  by  the  boy.  I  will 
write  to  you.  If  you  change  your  deci 
sion,  —  but  no  matter  now.  I  will  write  to 
you  and  to  the  minister." 

All  other  words  of  parting  were  brief  and 
soon  spoken.  The  boy  showed  no  emotion 
at  leaving  his  mother,  as  he  had  throughout 
exhibited  no  tenderness.  He  climbed  noisily 
into  the  carriage,  and  the  father  and  son,  so 


DELIA  GRIMIVET.  331 

strangely  assorted,  rode  together  up  the  hill, 
past  the  stark  meeting-house,  and  so  on  into 
the  world  whose  seething  waves  seldom 
troubled,  even  by  such  a  ripple  as  the  events 
just  narrated,  the  dull  calm  of  Kempton ; 
and  to  John  Farnsworth  it  was  as  if  the  wo- 
ful  burden  of  remorse  which  had  so  long 
vexed  heart  and  conscience  had  taken  bodily 
shape  and  rode  by  his  side. 

Delia  had  been  calm  until  the  two  were 
gone,  —  so  calm  that  her  husband  thought 
her  still  half  dazed  by  the  excitement  and 
anguish  of  the  previous  night.  She  stood 
steadily  at  the  window  until  the  carriage 
disappeared  behind  the  grave-covered  hill. 
Then  she  threw  herself  grovelling  upon  the 
-floor  in  the  very  ecstasy  of  woe.  She  did 
not  shriek,  strangling  in  her  throat  into  inar 
ticulate  moans  and  gurglings  the  cries  which 
rent  their  way  from  her  inmost  soul ;  but  she 
beat  her  head  upon  the  bare  floor;  she 
caught  at  the  furniture  like  a  wild  beast, 
leaving  the  print  of  her  strong  teeth  in  the 
hard  wood ;  she  was  convulsed  with  her 
agony,  a  speechless  animal  rage,  a  boundless, 
irrepressible  anguish  which  could  not  be 
measured  or  expressed.  She  clutched  her 
bosom  with  her  savage  hands,  as  if  she 
would  tear  herself  in  pieces ;  she  wounded 


332  A  BOOK  a  NINE   TALES. 

and  bruised  herself  with  a  fierceness  so  in 
tense  as  to  be  almost  delight. 

In  the  midst  of  her  wildest  paroxysm  there 
came  a  knocking  at  the  door.  She  started 
up,  her  face  positively  illuminated. 

"  They  have  come  back  !  "  she  murmured 
in  ecstasy. 

She  rushed  to  the  door  and  undid -its  fast 
enings  with  fingers  tremulous  from  eager  joy. 
A  neighbor  confronted  her,  staring  in  dis 
may  and  amazement  at  her  strange  and  dis 
hevelled  appearance. 

"  What 's  come  to  ye,  Dele?  "  he  demanded 
roughly,  though  not  unkindly.  "  When  ye 
goin'  to  put  the  box  in  Widder  Pettigrove's 
grave? " 

She  confronted  him  for  an  instant  with  a 
wandering  look  in  her  eye,  as  though  she 
had  mercifully  been  driven  mad.  Then  the 
tyranny  of  life  and  habit  reasserted  itself. 

"  I  '11  come  up  now,  Bill,"  she  said. 

And  she  went  back  to  her  graves. 


THE   END. 


Messrs.  Roberts  B  rot  tiers'  Publications. 


A  LAD'S  LOVE. 

By  ARLO   BATES. 
16mo,  Cloth.    Price,  $1.00.     Paper  Covers,  50  Cents. 

It  is  just  the  kind  of  a  story  to  suit  the  majority  of  watering-place  people  who 
wish  to  help  pass  the  time  with  light  reading.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Campobello  ; 
and  the  social  life  at  a  sea-side  resort,  with  its  impromptu  festivities,  is  attrac 
tively  set  forth.  The  persons  who  form  the  principal  group  in  the  story  are 
above  the  usual  watering-place  gossips,  that  magnify  every  innocent  flirtation 
they  see ;  and  the  lad  who  at  twenty-one  falls  desperately  in  love  with  a  charming 
widow  of  thirty-five  years,  at  last  sensibly  turns  to  the  daughter,  loves  her  and 
marries  her,  through  the  shrewd  management  of  her  mother.  The  object  of  the 
book  is  to  show  how  often  and  how  fervently  a  callow  youth  is  attracted  to  some 
one  older  and  more  cultivated  than  himself;  and  the  analysis  of  his  passion  is 
very  well  done.  — Hartford  Times. 

This  time  Mr.  Bates,  who  wields  a  facile  pen,  has  taken  up  a  facile  subject, 
for  the  burden  of  his  story  is  the  evolution  of  a  young  man's  love  in  the  cool 
shades  and  sylvan  retreats  of  Campobello.  .  .  .  Incidentally  he  pictures  certain 
aspects  of  society  and  gives  a  fair  account  of  Campobello.  A  Lad's  Love  is  a 
readable  story,  and  young  women  will  read  it  not  only  with  pleasure  but  also  with 
profit.  It  will  teach  them  how  love  acts  iti  a  pure  lad.  —  Tlie  Beacon. 

Arlo  Bates  is  favorably  known  as  a  writer  of  pleasant  and  healthy  verse,  and 
he  appears  to  equal  advantage  as  the  author  of  this  bright  novel,  which  is  as 
breezy  as  the  air  of  Mount  Desert,  where  the  scene  is  laid.  The  "  Lad  "  is  a 
youth  of  twenty-two  or  so,  just  through  Harvard;  and  the  depth,  strength,  and 
variety  of  his  love  are  well  illustrated  by  his  frantic  passion  for  a  widow  old 
enough  to  be  his  mother,  by  his  rapid  transfer  of  affection  to  her  lovely  daughter, 
and  by  his  nearly  getting  entangled  with  a  third  woman  before  he  secures  the 
right  one.  There  is  a  thorough-bred  air  about  the  book  which  leaves  a  good  im 
pression,  and  a  liveliness  of  fancy  and  description  which  promises  more  good 
stories  from  Mr.  Bates's  pen.  The  minor  characters,  though  merely  sketched  in 
lightly,  fill  their  places  admirably,  and  the  two  heroines  are  quite  delicious.  — 
Pittsburgh  Bulletin. 

The  author  delights  in  making  an  analytical  study  of  the  mental  condition  of 
the  principal  actors  at  various  stages  of  the  story,  and  now  and  then  brightens  the 
pages  with  a  crisp  epigram  that  betrays  a  habit  of  close  observation  of  human 
nature  in  the  lines  of  the  story's  theme.  .  .  .  The  people  of  the  story  are  life 
like,  however,  and  there  is  not  an  impossible  nor  even  an  improbable  person 
among  them.  —  Springfield  Union. 


Sold   everywhere.      Mailed,    post-paid,   on    receipt    of  the 
price,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Publications. 

POEMS  BY  ARLO  BATES. 

Including  "BERRIES  OF  THE  BRIER,"  and  "SON 
NETS  IN  SHADOW." 

One  Volume.       16mo,  Cloth.      Price,  $1.50. 
Each  volume  separate,  price,  $1.00. 


These  poems  are  always  poetical ;  they  are  carefully  finished ;  they 
are  not  vers  de  sac  Me ;  they  do  not  affect  American  humor,  and  they  are 
utterly  unpretentious.  Mr  T  B.  Aldrich  might  own  a  good  many  of 
them.  They  reveal  Mr.  Bates'  mind  and  temper  at  their  very  best,  and 
will  be  enjoyed  by  those  who  have  an  ear  for  fine,  light  impressions  finely 
and  delicately  expressed.  —  The  Beacon. 

The  poems,  all  very  short,  except  the  "  Ballad  of  the  Spinner,"  are 
almost  all  flavorous  with  love's  delicious  essence.  The  perennial  passion 
receives  fresh  illumination  in  a  hundred  ways.  Warmth,  richness, 
suggestiveness,  smooth-flowing  melody,  —  these  are  some  of  the  traits  of 
Mr.  Bates'  verses,  which  are  well  worthy  the  tasteful  setting  here  given 
them. 

They  are  almost  invariably  the  setting  of  some  pretty  and  thoroughly 
poetic  thought ;  and  the  writer's  expression  is  clear  and  precise,  and 
studded  with  bits  of  exquisite  imagery.  —  A  rgonaut. 

There  are  many  who  will  welcome  another  volume  from  the  pen  of 
Arlo  Bates,  although  it  be  a  sad  one  The  twenty-nine  sonnets  which 
make  up  this  little  collection  are  but  variations  of  one  melody,  and  that 
played  in  the  minor  key.  They  will  sink  deep  into  many  hearts,  for  they 
are  the  expressions  of  various  moods  which  all  who  have  known  grief 
and  loss  will  have  felt  and  be  able  to  comprehend.  The  men  and  women 
who  have  no  artistic  gifts,  and  who  sit  and  shed  salt  tears  in  stony  silence, 
unable  to  give  their  woe  adequate  words,  will  feel  that  a  human  heart 
has  here  been  revealed  to  them  able  to  sympathize  with  every  throb  and 
pulsation  of  their  own.  There  is  not  a  cry  of  a  bruised  soul  but  will  find 
its  echo  in  some  one  of  these  sonnets,  and  the  knowledge  that  they  are 
the  expression  of  a  real  and  personal  sorrow  gives  them  a  power  and 
interest  that  no  ideal  or  imaginary  work  could  possess.  —  Transcript. 


ROBERTS    BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Publications.  • 

A  WOODLAND  WOOING. 

By  ELEANOR  PUTNAM. 
16mo,  Cloth.    Price,  $1.00.    Paper  Covers,  50  Cents. 

A  thoroughly  wholesome  story  is  A  Woodland  Wooing,  by  Eleanor  Putnam 
(the  iate  Mrs.  Arlo  Hates).  It  is  as  sweet  as  a  meadow  of  clover  and  as  bright 
as  a  crisp  October  morning.  Its  simplest  events  are  made  fascinating  by  their 
rare  naturalness.  The  motherless  children  of  a  country  doctor  figure  prominently 
in  the  tale,  and  they  devise  all  sorts  of  original  modes  of  amusing  themselves,  of 
course  omitting  whatever  is  incompatible  with  self-respect  or  unapproved  by  con 
science.  Boys  and  girls  are  for  the  most  part  the  story's  heroes  and  heroines, 
and  when  they  find  themselves  quite  unexpectedly  grown  into  men  and  women 
and  realize  all  that  maturity  means,  their  natures  are  strong  and  unhurt  by  the 
evils  of  self-consciousness  or  of  unwholesome  speculations  regarding  the  signifi 
cance  of  this  life  or  the  next.  They  are  children  of  fine,  vigorous  intellectual 
fibre  and  noble  impulses  that  lead  them  toward  worthiness,  happiness,  and  use 
fulness,  and  the  story  of  their  progress  toward  higher  things  is  charmingly  told. — 
The  Delineator. 

Like  a  cool  breeze  on  a  sultry  day  comes  this  little  book,  A  Woodland  Wooing, 
by  Eleanor  Putnam,  fresh  and  sparkling,  with  almost  child-like  fun,  and  not 
even  the  shadow  of  a  moral  spectre  to  be  found  stalking  anywhere  between  its 
dainty  covers.  .  .  .  The  Yankee  country-folks  all  around  are  photographed  very 
accurately  to  our  mind's  eye,  arid  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  they  are  more 
amusing  than  the  widely-travelled  and  elegantly-Bohemian  family  of  Sparhawks, 
whose  advent  in  the  village  makes  such  a  sensation.  The  infant  Sparhawks  are 
especially  droll,  and  remind  one  strongly  of  those  famous  personages,  '  Toddy 
and  Budge."  In  fact  it  is  just  the  sort  of  book  to  read  aloud,  so  as  to  have  some 
one  to  laugh  with  over  its  joyous  humor.  — Home  Journal. 

One  of  the  breeziest,  brightest  books  of  the  year.  It  is  not  only  charmingly 
original,  but  thoroughly  amusing.  Its  characters  are  drawn  with  all  the  skill  of 
the  literary  artist,  and  stand  out  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  like  beautiful  pictures 
upon  the  canvas.  The  reading  will  make  old  gray  heads  feel  again  young.  It 
will  revive  the  visions  of  youth,  with  spring. flowers,  when  all  the  world  stretched 
away  in  brightness.  The  story  is  a  summer  camping-out,  told  in  alternate  chap 
ters  by  a  brother  and  sister,  in  which  all  sorts  of  people  are  introduced  to  the 
reader  in  a  most  delightful  and  amusing  way.  It  matters  not  that  it  contains 
much  nonsense ;  life  needs  a  good  deal  of  such  to  spice  it  up.  The  woodland 
wooing,  it  may  be  remarked, 'is  carried  on  under  many  and  trying  circumstances. 
But  it  all  ends  well.  It  is  indeed  a  bright,  breezy,  pleasing  book,  and  tears  will 
only  come  in  the  remembrance  that  the  hand  that  penned  the  lines  has  ceased 
forever  from  such  pleasing  earthly  tasks.  —  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 


Sold  everywhere.      Mailed,  post-paid,  on    receipt   of  the 
price,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


PRINCE    VANCE. 

A  Story  of  a  Prince  with  a   Court   in  His  Box.      By  ELEANOR 
PUTNAM  and  ARLO  BATES.     Illustrated  by  Frank  Myrick. 


"Prince  Vance"  is  an  Entertaining  Fairy  Story  of  thf  wildest  and  most 
fantastic  adventures  and  of  amusing  and  original  impossibilities,  -which, 
however,  carry  with  them  a  stern  puritan  moral.  This  allegiance  of  un 
fettered  imagination  and  straightforward,  wholesome,  moral  teaching  is 
unusual,  and  gives  the  little  book  a  special  value. 

Small  4to.     Cloth  gilt.     Price,  $1.50. 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


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